
Class I_12J_ 
CopigtitN" 

COFWIGHT DEFOSm 




SEVEN FALLS, CHEYENNE CANON 



My Mountains 



By 

Roselle Theodore Cross 



Author of 

Home Duties, Clear as Crystal, Crystals and Gold, 

My Children's Ancestors, Twinsburg 

Genealogies, etc. 




192 1 

IHE STRATFORD CO., Publishers 
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 



Copyright 1921 

The STRATFORD CO., Publisliers 

Boston, Mass. 



The Alpine Press, Boston, Mass., U. S. A. 

MAV 31 1921 
A614824 



To my children, Leora M., Judson L., and Cleaveland 
R., and to my friend, William D. Westervelt, all of 
whom in years gone by ofttimes shared with me the 
slight discomforts and great pleasures of mountain 
camps and mountain tramps, this mountain book is 
dedicated. 



Preface 

I resided nineteen years in Colorado, one year in Oregon, 
and fourteen years in Nebraska and Minnesota, in which latter 
states I was far enough from the mountains to become very 
homesick for them, but near enough to go to them for a vaca- 
tion nearly every summer. So for about one-third of a century 
I intensely enjoyed the mountains. The trips that I took, by 
rail and by trail, in, over, among, through and around them, 
trips . lasting from one day to one month, were more than I 
can enumerate. Very many of them were at the time made 
subjects of articles for various papers. My brain is crowded 
with memories, my albums with pictures, and my scrap-books 
with descriptions of mountains and mountain trips. 

For nineteen years I looked almost daily from my west 
windows in Colorado Springs, Denver and Fort Collins upon 
the great Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. Living 
now far east of those mountains, with no probability of 
ever seeing them again, certainly not of climbing them, 
it occurs to me that I can live those mountain trips over 
again with pleasure to myself and possibly to others. So I 
have sorted and sifted and arranged my mountain memories 
and descriptive articles into a mountain book. To do so is a 
pleasant task, and perhaps it is a duty that I owe to friends 
and strangers who have not had the opportunities that have 
come to me in such abundance of visiting and dwelling with 
the mountains. 

R. T. C. 
Twinsburg, 0., July, 1920. 



The Mountaineer's Prayer 

By Lucy Laecom 

Gird me with the strength of thy steadfast hills ! 

The speed of thy streams give me! 
In the spirit that calms, with the life that thrills, 

I would stand or run for thee. 
Let me be thy voice, or thy silent power, — 

As the cataract or the peak, — 
An eternal thought in my earthly hour, 

Of the living God to speak. 

Clothe me in the rose tints of thy skies 

Upon morning summits laid ; 
Robe me in the purple and gold that flies 

Through thy shuttles of light and shade ; 
Let me rise and rejoice in thy smile aright, 

As mountains and forests do ; 
Let me w^elcome thy twilight and thy night, 

And wait for thy dawn anew ! 

Give me the brook's faith, joyously sung 

Under clank of its icy chain ! 
Give me the patience that hides among 

Thy hill tops in mist and rain ! 
Lift me up from the clod, let me breathe thy breath ; 

Thy beauty and strength give me ; 
Let me lose both the name and the meaning of death 

In the life that I share with thee. 



Illustrations 



Seven Falls 

Cathedral Spires 

Our Camping Party, 1877 

Upper Twin Lake 

Elephant Rock 

Garden of the Gods ; Pike 's Peak in the distance 

Rosemma Falls 

Minnehaha Falls 

Upper Falls of Seven Falls 

Cascade in North Cheyenne Canon . 

Vulcan's Anvil . ... 

The Witches . . 

In Cascade Canon .... 

In North Cheyenne Canon 

Temple of Isis ..... 

Helictites and Stalactites 

Near Telluride, Colorado . 

Lone Star Geyser in Yellowstone Park 



Frontispiece 
. 8 
. 30 
. 30 
. 46 
. 52 
. 72 
. 75 
. 77 
. 80 
• 91 
. 95 
. 102 
. 112 
. 140 
. 144 
. 166 
. 181 



Contents 



CHAPTER PAGE 

Introduction 

What this book is and is not - — • Scientist and nature lover 

— Prof. Russell — Tyndall — John Muir — Enos A. Mills 

— Ownership of the mountains — Personal pronouns • — The 
Singer's Hills — The brotherhood of mountaineers. 



I First Sight of the Mountains 



John Muir's first siffht — Mine at a distance and near by 

— First sight of Pike's Peak — First sight from cars and 
autos — Deceptive distances ■ — ''It made me cry'' — Dif- 
ference in people — Homesick for the mountains ■ — The 
mountains revisited — John B. Gough and Mont Blanc • — 
Mount Rainier. 

IT Mountains as Neighbors ..... 8 

Neighboring with Pike's Peak and the Front Range • — 
Many view points — The many moods of mountains ■ — 
Clouds ■ — Mountains hid in Oregon — Pike's Peak ob- 
scured for two weeks ■ — Thunder storms • — Forest fires 
— ■ Sunrises and sunsets — The rosy alpenglow ■ — Individ- 
uality of mountains ■ — ■ Volcanic peaks — Mount Whitney 

— Introducing our friends to the mountains ■ — - A fair ex- 
change. 

III How to See the Mountains . ' . . . .15 

Distance and nearness — On foot — Bicycle or motorcycle 

— A bicycle in the Black Hills — Harney's Peak — Sylvan 
Lake — The Needles ■ — • Racing with a thunder storm - — 
Horse back • — Oamp wagons — Light buggies — Autos ■ — 
Aeroplanes — From a steamboat deck — Columbia River 

— The trip to Alaska ■ — Mountains, waterfalls and glaciers 

— Greenville Channel — The last night of the trip - — - The 
mountains from a car window ■ — A slow train up Boulder 
Canon — Squaring a mountain circle of 428 miles — Platte 
Canon, South Park, Leadville, Arkansas Valley. College 
Range, Royal Gorge, Rampart Range ■ — Dropping 2000 
feet. 

IV Camping in the Mountains 30 

Camping alone — My pick ■ — Distant views — A crowd 
of boys — Crystal Park — A handy telescope — Wild game 

— Crystals — Cameron's Cone — • A high wind — Seven 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTEE PAGE 

Lakes • — Not discovering Cripple Creek — Camping Trip 
to Twin Lakes in 1877 ■ — Ute Pass — Crystals — Sunday 
at Salt Works — A runaway — Hot Springs - — ■ A week 
at Twin Lakes — A mining camp service ■ — Killing a. deer 
• — ■ Our driver — A wedding fee — A wonderful view and a 
brilliant rainbow — The journey home ■ — Storm Camp — 
A dead mule — Losing a tire ■ — - A trip with college profes- 
sors - — Leadville — Horse thieves shot — A family camp 
— Pleasant Park — Rocks and flowers — The children's 
glorious time — Raspberries, Oregon grapes rose gypsum, 
rattlesnakes — Wonderful rocks ■ — A community camp - — ■ 
Chautauqua ■ — ■ Glen Park • — Three pretty girls - — A long, 
hard tramp — Bears — A puzzled hog — A frightened, 
bear. 



Climbing High Mountains 52 

Not professional climbing — Cog-road and auto too easy ■ — 
Natural instinct for climbing — Motives — The joy of it 
— The difficulties — Cameron's Cone — Mount Lincoln • — 
Frost crystals — A glorious view of parks, peaks and ranges 
- — - Thunder storms ■ — - Rolling big stones ■ — - Snow and cold 
in July — Gray's Peak — An early start — Danger and 
gold — The view from the summit — Mount of the Holy 
Cross — The descent — A narrow escape — Pike's Peak — 
Its discovery ■ — ■ A trying experience — Nine miles in twelve 
hours — Naming waterfalls • — Climbing up soft snow • — 
A thunder storm — A sleepless night • — Mountain rats — 
Sergeant O'Rourke's baby - — ■ Sunrise • — Clouds • — The 
descent — Bald Mountain — Lost in a cloud. 



VI Mountain Waterfalls . . . . . .72 

Our ownership — What is a waterfall ? ■ — Yariety • — 
Niagara — Seven Palls — Rosemma Falls — Bridal Veil 
Falls — A book of promises — Yellowstone Falls — Mult- 
nomah Falls — Yosemite Falls. 



VII The Mountain Brook, a Study . . . .80 

Analyzing it ■ — - Tennyson's Brook — The brook's identity 

— An endless serpent — A wandering Jew — A circuit 
rider — A lily of the valley — A stairway • — A surface 

indicator Clear water and M^hite water ■ — Sparkling 

beauty — The law of gravitation — Its parents and grand- 
parents — The glacier — Rootlet of the ocean • — Parent 
of the plains — A watering trough — A fish preserve — A 
mountain drain — A feeder of rivers — A valley excavator 

— A railroad — A can-opener — A grist mill • — A cleaver 

— A stone carver — A lapidary — A latent power ■ — Guide, 
friend and companion • — ■ A scatterer of sunshine — A chime 
of bells — An orchestra — A shattered mirror — A fairy- 
land ■ — The book in the brook — A rainbow factory — A 
faithful lover — A type of youth — A still water ■ — A 
praiser of God. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

vin Mountain Parks and Valleys 91 

City parks — Small parks and large ones — National parks 
■ — E. A. Mills' definition — North Park ■ — San Luis Park 

— Mount Blanca — Rio Grande River — Islands • — The 
mirage — Uncompaghre Valley — Ute Indians ■ — Towns 
and farms — Churches — Jones' Park and its crazy owner 

— Finding a cabin. 

IX Canons and Cliff Dwellings . . . . .99 

Definition — Canons in the foothills — Royal Gorge • — 
Grand River and Eagle Canons — Cascade Canon — Animas 
Canon — ■ The Grand Canon — Diamond Creek Canon — 
Cliff-dwellings in Walnut Canon — Revolvers in satchels 

— Bright Angel trail — Yellowstone Canon. 



X Mountain Passes . . . . . . . 119 

Sierra Passes — Marshall Pass by stage and by rail — In 
winter, summer and autumn — Road agents — Alpine Pass 

— Snow slides — Pitkin - — Ophir Pass — A storm — In an 
ice cave — Flowers — Meeting a bear — Red mountains ■ — 
Burro drivers — VieAV of many ranges ■ — Dropping 5000 
feet — Independence Pass — Dizzy heights — Deep snows 

— A close shave — Down hill — Independence — Aspen 

— The return trip — Two hogs • — Corduroy roads — Much 
laughter — A soaking rain — A rainbow — All night on 
the cars. 



XI Mountain Forests and Flowers . . . . 133 

Florida and Alaskan forests — Open forests • — Changing 
colors of forests — Conifers — Petrified forests — John 
Muir — Flowers above timber line — In the San Juan — 
On Mount Lincoln — Growing through old snow — Variety 
of flowers — Abundance — Their sweetness not wasted. 



XII Caves, Mines and Tunnels 140 

Inside the mountains — Cave in northern New York • — 
How we discovered The Cave of the Winds at Manitou ■ — • 
Boys' exploring society — A big find — Naming it — Wind 
Cave in the Black Hills — Coal mines ■ — ■ Gold mines — 
Finding them — A gold nugget — Two silver dollars ■ — ■ 
Our debt to prospectors and miners — The fun of finding 
and giving millions — Tunnels. 

xm Snow, Ice and Glaciers 147 

Deep snow — Huge drifts and fields of snow — Glaciers 
— Canadian Rockies — Glacier — Illecillewaet Glacier — 
Sunday vespers — Mount Sir Donald — Flowers on old ice 
fields in the San Juan — The ice age. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XIV Hunting, Fishing, and Digging Crystals . . 153 

Killing God's creatures — Safer without guns • — John 
Muir's example — Fishing — No bite for hours ■ — - A catch 
of eighty — Watching and catching trout in clear water ■ — ■ 
Catching fish for a bear — A single fish — Catching in the 
hand — Catching a big fish three times — The water ouzel 
— A bird and a spider's web — Freeing a bird ■ — Hunting 
for scenery ■ — A valuable recipe — Pleasures of crystal 
hunting — Memories of many crystal hunts in many 
mountains. 



XV The San Juan Mountains 



What and where they are ■ — ■ Their many attractions • — 
Around the circle — A thousand miles of wonderful scenery 
• — Different routes . — San Luis Park ■ — Phantom curve 

— Toltec Gorge — The continental divide — In New 
Mexico • — Durango — An old certificate — Silverton - — • 
A two-minute sermon — Wild echoes ■ — A wild walk • — 
Ouray and its wonders — Ride to Montrose ■ — Black Canon 

— Side trips — To the Elk Mountains — To Lake City — 
Wonderful air — Rockwood to Rico — Over two ranges by 
stage — Twelve bears ■ — Nailing up giant powder ■ — A 
hotel conversation — Schoolgirl slang — Telluride scenerv. 



166 



XVI Yellowstone Park 



America's seven wonders — Facts about the park ■ — Mam- 
moth Hot Springs — Hail storm • — What we see in one day 
— Upper Basin and its geysers — Flowers — The lake ■ — • 
Danger — Mud volcano — Sulphur spring ■ — The canon 
and falls — Chasing the bears — A dozen or more petrified 
forests — Svimmary. 



181 



XVII The Yosemite 



. 193 



Its chief owner A lecturer's exaggerations — Anticipated 

forty years — A two days' visit ■ — A moon-rise — El 
Capitan — The trail to Yosemite Falls — Vernal and 
Nevada Falls — Mirror Lake — The sunrise in it — Glacier 
Point — Tissiack and Mount Watkins. 

XVIII Life and Death in the Mountains . . . . 

Law of gravitation — Missing with $10,000 — An oath 
and a venture — Abandoned mines — Snow slides ■ — ■ A 
destructive cloud-burst — Bears and mosquitos ■ — Life 
and safety — Pure air and water — Sunshine — A cured 
child — Flee to the mountains ■ — The white plague. 



198 



XIX Mountain Miscellanies ...... 

A wedding in high life — A blossoming desert ■ — No water 
and plenty — Irrigation — Unfailing springs — Lost 
streams — Dust storms — Following the trail • — Rolling 
stones — Colorado sunshine — Shadow of a great rock — 
Mountain cloud views. 



205 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER ' PAGE 

XX Mountain Rhymes ...... 219 

Rosemma Falls — The Rio Grande Railroad — The Chip- 
munk — The Camp Fire ■ — Through the Mountains — 
Glorified Clouds — Glen Park — The Hills of God — Our 
Camp of 'Eighty-Seven — In J. A.'s Album — In My 
Niece's Album. 

XXI Mountains in the Bible . . . . . . 249 



Introduction 

THIS book is not a scientific treatise on mountains, though 
I trust that it is not tmscientific. A geologist might 
write of the mountains in a scientific way without having 
seen them, but one could not write such a book as this aims 
to be, if he had not lived with the mountains and been on 
familiar terms with them for many years. Boswell never 
could have written his life of Samuel Johnson if he had not 
watched him closely and listened to his conversations for 
many years. 

Careful scientist and enthusiastic nature lover are not 
always combined in the same person. AVhen they are it is 
a happy combination. If I cannot be both I would rather 
be the latter. Professor Russell, formerly of Ann Arbor, 
combined the two most happily. Because he had a deep love 
of nature he could write most entertainingly, as well as 
scientifically, on geological subjects. His monographs in the 
U. S. Geological Reports were oases, eagerly sought after by 
one reader at least. 

Tyndall was a true scientist, but he was more than a 
scientist. I can heartily say amen to the following from his 
pen: "The mountains have been to me well-springs of life 
and joy. They have given me royal pictures and memories 
that can never fade. They have made me feel in all my fibers 
the blessedness of perfect manhood, causing mind, soul 
and body to work together with a harmony and strength 
unqualified by infirmity and ennui." 



MY MOUNTAINS 

The late John Mnir, chief and best of all onr mountain 
writers, whose books I keep and often re-read, as I do a 
volume of choice poetry, freely marking their choicest pas- 
sages, and to whom I shall often refer in these pages, was a 
scientific botanist and a trained glaciologist, but he was far 
more. He was a life-long lover and a splendid interpreter 
of the mountains, of their forests, flowers, and waters. Sum- 
mer after summer, for many years, he lived in the Sierras, 
studying their canons and glacial valleys, climbing their 
peaks, discovering the remnants and moraines and markings 
of their once mighty rivers of ice, sleeping in the open, liv- 
ing for days on bread and tea, carrying no murderous 
weapon, on good terms with all the inhabitants, even the 
rattlesnakes, studying the Pacific slope to the far north, find- 
ing and naming the famous Muir Glacier in Alaska, endur- 
ing many hardships, but ever praising God for the many 
"divinely glorious days" that he enjoyed. 

Enos A. Mills, whom I call the John Muir of Colorado, 
is doing a similar work for the Rocky Mountains. His books 
abound in interesting facts and experiences and are very 
readable, though lacking the poetic spirit and spiritual flavor 
of John Muir's books. Colorado is a great state and two- 
thirds of its 104,000 square miles are mountainous. Mills 
writes but little of the region with which I was most familiar, 
and I shall not have much to say about his favorite region 
around Long 's Peak and Estes Park. Nor shall I have much 
to say about trees and animal life. What I write may to 
some extent supplement what he writes, and tell of some 
things from a different standpoint. 

The title of this book. My Mountains, implies owner- 
ship. The mountains have many owners, though sometimes 
a whole mountain or park or canon is legally owned by one 



INTRODUCTION 

person. The U. S. Government, that is, ''we the people," 
own most of our western mountains, and hence I, as a tax- 
paying citizen, am one of their many owners. But the 
mountains of which I write, those that I explored and lived 
with and enjoyed, those that I have showed to my friends 
by picture or print or talk, those are mine in a peculiar 
sense, mine by right of companionship and appreciation, 
just as the fruitful fields in the country and the flower beds 
in my neighbors' yards are mine; mine to appreciate and 
enjoy and talk and write about, in whosesoever names their 
title deeds are recorded. I lay no special claim to the 
mountains that I have not seen, but those that I have seen, 
though only from a passing train, are mine by right of 
spiritual discovery and appreciation. I hope, yes, I know, 
that I have many partners in their ownership. Many of my 
mountains have mines of gold, silver, iron and coal, in which 
men delve and about which they often quarrel. Never mind, 
they do not trespass on my rights, nor do I on theirs, not 
even when I find rare and beautiful crystals, rejected by them 
as worthless, on their refuse dumps. 

My implies / and me. I use the first personal pronouns 
freely, for I believe that the personality of a writer and his 
personal experiences make a book far more interesting to 
the average reader. It is one secret of the popularity of the 
books of John Muir and Enos A. Mills. I have not left out 
of this book the little chunks of human nature that I have 
run across in my trips. Some of them may not seem so 
interesting or humorous now as they did when I encountered 
them, but they are genuine. 

H. H. (Helen Hunt Jackson), who dearly loved some of 
the same mountains that I loved, wrote a beautiful poem on 



MY MOUNTAINS 

The Singer's Hills. I quote a small part of it. The Singer 
dwelt from boyhood where were : — 

''Wide barren fields for miles and miles, until 
The pale horizon walled them in, and still ' 
No lifted peak, no slope, not even mound 
To raise and cheer the weary eye was found." 

# # # * 

''There must be hills," he said, 
"I know they stand at sunset rosy red. 
And purple in the dewy shadowed morn ; 
Great forest trees are rocked and borne 
Upon their breasts, and flowers like jewels shine 
Around their feet, and gold and silver line 
Their hidden chambers, and great cities rise 
Stately where their protecting shadow lies. 
And men grow brave and women are more fair 
'Neath higher skies and in the clearer air." 
One day he caught sight of them far out to seaward. 
The tears ran down his cheeks as he gazed on their beauty. 
"He called aloud, 'Ho ! tarry! tarry ye ! 
Behold those purple mountains in the sea ! ' 
The people saw no mountains! 'He is mad,' 
They careless said, and went their way and had 
No further thought of him." 
Finally he went out to sea in a boat, saw them and came 
back and cried : 

"Lo, I have landed on the hills of gold! 
See, these are flowers, and these are fruits, and these 
Are boughs from off the giant forest trees; 
And these are jewels which lie loosely there. 
And these are stuffs which beauteous maidens wear ! 



INTRODUCTION 

And staggering, he knelt upon the sands 
As laying burdens down. But empty hands 
His fellows saw, and passed on smiling." 
They called him a madman. Finally some went out to see if 
there were hills and treasures. Some found them and were 
glad ; others found them not and were skeptical and scornful. 
''Slowly the Singer's comrades grew and gained 
Till they were a goodly number. No man's scorn 
Could hurt or hinder them. No pity born 
Of it could make them blush, or once make less 
Their joy's estate; and as for loneliness 
They knew it not. 

Still rise the magic hills, 
Purple and gold and red ; the shore still thrills 
With fragrance when the sunset winds begin 
To blow and waft the subtle odors in." 
* *' # # 

"And men with cheeks all red, and eyes aflame. 
And hearts that call to hearts by brother 's name, 
Still leap out on the silent lifeless sands, 
And staggering with overburdened hands. 
Joyous lay down the treasures they have brought 
While smiling, pitying, the world sees naught.'^ 

Yes, there must be hills on this earth, glorious hills. 
Happy are they who have eyes to see them and their treasures. 
To all such I would fain speak, for I am sure of their interest 
and appreciation. 



CHAPTER I 
FIRST SIGHT OF THE MOUNTAINS 

JOHN MUIR, in his Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf, tells 
of his first view and ascent of the Cumberland Mountains, 
"the first real mountains," he says, "that my foot ever 
touched or eyes beheld," and he speaks of one of the views 
as "the most sublime and comprehensive picture that ever 
entered my eyes." The ascent took him six or seven hours, "a 
strangely long period of up-grade work to one accustomed only 
to the hillocky levels of Wisconsin and adjacent states." 
Probably he little dreamed what his eyes were destined to see 
for many years of the great mountains of the far west and of 
Alaska. Later on he speaks of the first mountain stream he 
ever saw, "than which there is nothing more eloquent in 
nature," he says. 

My first view of the mountains at a distance was on our 
second day out from Omaha as we drew near to Cheyenne. 
There they were, on the western horizon, the great front range 
of the Rock}^ Mountains, a hundred miles, more or less, of 
serrated peaks, of domes and ridges, a hundred or hundred 
and fifty miles away, snow-covered, beautiful and suggestive. 
Ah ! Ah ! There they are at last ; the mountains, the Rocky 
Mountains ! The front range of one of the world 's great 
mountain systems! Beyond them for a thousand miles or 
more are countless interlocked ranges, while the whole system 
extends from central Alaska to the Isthmus of Panama, some 

[I] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

5000 miles; and another system, or the same one, goes on 
down about the whole length of South America, to Patagonia ; 
another 5000 miles, more or less. If I make a thorough study 
of only those in the United States, I must give up my vocation 
and get my life greatly lengthened beyond the allotted age. 
But no, they shall be only an avocation, a side issue, a pleasant 
hobby, a field for some splendid vacations. 

That was forty-four years ago. I have feasted often and 
much since then on the beauties and glories of those moun- 
tains, but I am only an Isaac Newton on the edge of them. A 
few of the peaks and ranges are mine by sight and conquest, 
but vast ranges and systems stretch before me unseen and 
unexplored. 

When I reached the end of my journey at Colorado 
Springs in 1876, one of the first things that I did was to take 
a good look at the magnificent surroundings of my new home. 
''Where is Pike's Peak?" I said to a friend. 

"There it is," said he, pointing to the west. 

' ' What, that rounded dome ? ' ' 

"No," said he, "that is only Cameron's Cone, a half 
mile or more lower than Pike 's Peak. It is the one beyond and 
to the right." 

"Is that Pike's Peak?" I said. I was disappointed. It 
was not a peak but an irregular dome, somewhat dwarfed and 
obscured by the nearer foothills that were only 8000 to 10,000 
feet high, instead of over 14,000 feet. But as I looked at it 
from many viewpoints for many years it grew on me more and 
more, and now it never disappoints me. 

A few days later a friend took me to Manitou, five miles 
nearer to the Peak, at the center of the grand amphitheater of 
wooded and rocky foothills, mountains they would be called in 
the East, of many sizes and shapes and heights, separated 

[2] 



FIRST SIGHT OF THE MOUNTAINS 

from each other by wooded valleys and rugged canons and 
dashing mountain streams. They apparently drew near to 
me, as though they would mutely welcome a new lover, and 
as they began to surround and close in on me there came over 
me a sense of their beauty and grandeur that almost over- 
whelmed me, and made me feel that I must go back at once 
and get my wife to come and enjoy with me that new and 
delightful sensation. It was a clear case of love at first sight, 
for it was my first sight of mountains close at hand. I did 
not realize what glorious times I was to have with them in 
the years to come. As I turned towards home I left with them 
an unspoken appointment to call on them again and to call 
often. 

On every day of the year from countless trains, on a dozen 
or more different railroads, and now from thousands of autos 
in the summer time, eager tourists strain their eyes to catch 
the first view of what Pike and his men called the ''Snowy 
Mountains." "Conductor," they say, "is it possible that 
low lying white cloud on the horizon is the Rocky Mountains ? 
And is it possible they are twenty miles from here 1 ' ' 

"Yes,'* says the conductor in a weary tone, as he replies 
to the question he has answered so often. "Yes, that is the 
Rocky Mountains, and they are one hundred, cr one hundred 
and fifty miles away. ' ' 

"I don't believe it," replies the passenger. But after 
traveling straight toward them for several hours he believes 
the conductor. And when he lands at Denver he is still fifteen 
miles from the foothills and fifty from the main range. 

In 1898 I was on my way to Portland, Oregon, via the 
Canadian Pacific Railroad. After several hundred miles of 
the level and treeless plains of western Canada we drew near 
to the Canadian Rockies, which for hours had been slowly 

[3] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

rising on the western horizon. On the observation car I had 
been talking with a friend of college days whom I had fonnd 
on the train. I learned she had never before seen mountains. 
As we drew near to the place where the train plunges sud- 
denly from the open plains into the mountain gorges, I left 
her for awhile that she might be alone, as I would wish to be, 
when she found herself for the first time in her life among the 
great mountains. After awhile I went back and asked her 
how she liked it? ''Oh," she said, "it made me cry." I 
sympathized with her. Many times do tears of joy spring, 
from the eyes of the true lover of the mountains when he 
gazes on some lovely and glorious mountain scene. Not only 
the first sight of the mountains, but later sights under favor- 
able circumstances, and seeing them after a long separation, 
will raise emotions of delight that express themselves in tears. 

How one is impressed by the first sight of the mountains 
depends largely upon one's preparation for it. One who has 
heard but little about them, and cares biit little for nature, 
will take it as a matter of course and have no thrill of delight. 
But if one has heard about them from childhood, as I did 
from my mother about the Green Mountains of her childhood 
home in Vermont ; if one has read much about them and 
studied and admired their pictures; if one's home has been 
in the low country on level plains; if one feels that "there 
must be hills ; " if one has had a quenchless longing to see 
the mountains and has waited patiently for the opportunity, 
then, when it comes, the soul is glad with a great joy, whether 
expressed by shining eyes and tears, or by hallelujahs and 
doxologies. 

Homesick for the mountains? Yes, many have been, and 
many more will be. After living in Colorado thirteen years, I 
moved to Minneapolis and after a year or two, I became so 

[4] 



FIRST SIGHT OF THE MOUNTAINS 

homesick for the mountains that I sometimes partly covered 
the walls of one room with large photographs of mountains 
upon which I gazed by the hour. Only a good vacation in 
Colorado, roaming through the old mountain haunts, cured 
me, temporarily at least. My daughter had a worse attack 
than I did, often playing and singing her favorite song: "I 
love my mountain home." Her condition became so serious 
that we prescribed successfully a long vacation among her old 
"mountain homes." My own feelings when I took the same 
agreeable medicine I expressed as follows : 

The Mountains Revisited 

^^Ye rocks and hills! I'm with you once again. 

I h'old to you the hands" ye oft have filled 

And ask with eagerness that ye once more, 

As in the days of old, will fill them full 

Of flowers rare, and gems and crystals bright. * 

I lift to you the voice that oft has spoke 

Your praises to the dwellers on the plain. 

I open wide to you the heart that erst 

Your presence filled with joy and peace and love. 

With eyes that dimmed in memory of your forms 

I look you fairly in the face again. 

The visions of your charms that fiitted through 

My mind when occupied with other things 

Are real and satisfying now to me. 

In long draughts I breathe your balmy air. 

And feel new life and strength in all my frame. 

With lightsome feet I climb your rocky slopes. 

And wander satisfied beneath your pines. 

I pluck the fruit that grows in shaded nook, 

[5] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

And quench my thirst from out your crystal streams. 

I bless, I love you, ye mountains dear. 

No man e'er said to woman of his choice 

Those words — "I love ' ' — more truthfully than I 

Do say them now to you, ye rocks and hills, 

Ye mountain peaks and shaded vales and glens. 

Many years ago I heard John B. Gough, the superlatively 
eloquent lecturer, tell of his first view of Mont Blanc. I do 
not recall his words but I distinctly recall his appearance as 
he told how he stood, transfixed and thrilled through and 
through, when suddenly the whole vast snow-covered moun- 
tain, 15,782 feet high, burst upon his vision. Such a first view, 
not only of a whole range but of some particular great moun- 
tain, is something to be remembered through life, to be 
thought of with delight, and sometimes to be spoken of. 

Mount Rainier in Washington lifts its snow-covered iium- 
mit 13,394 feet above the near-by ocean. It is a majestic 
mountain, of volcanic origin, — like Mount Shasta in northern 
Californa, — standing by itself, far from any rival. I had 
read much about it and admired the pictures of it, so that 
on my first trip to that region, in 1898, it was one of the 
chief things I desired to see. 

I reached Seattle towards evening. About 9 p. m. (in 
July) I went out on one of the high hills of the city and looked 
off eastward to see the great mountain. I saw the Cascade 
Range with a long line of peaks, no one of which seemed 
pre-eminent above the others. I asked a stranger who stood 
near me if he could tell me which one of those peaks on 
the horizon was Mount Rainier. 

"Why, there it is," he said, pointing further south and 
much further up towards the zenith. I raised my head and 

[6] 



FIRST SIGHT OF THE MOUNTAINS 

looked up, and there it was ; the great snow-covered summit, 
with its twenty glaciers radiating downward from the top, 
all gloriously uplifted above the clouds that hid its base. 
I had missed it at first because I was looking too low, as we 
often miss some of the best things of life from looking too low. 



I7| 



CHAPTER II 
MOUNTAINS AS NEIGHBORS 

TO know a mountain well, or a mountain range, one must 
summer and winter with it. To know the mountains 
exceedingly well one must have them as neighbors for many 
years ; and, too, one must be neighborly with them. One must 
take an interest in them; one must go to the mountains when 
they will not come to him, making frequent calls and some 
long visits. 

For five years at Colorado Springs, I lived as neighbor 
to the Pike's Peak Range, and for about fourteen years ac 
Denver and Fort Collins I was neighbor to the Front Range 
of the Rocky Mountains. My knowledge of them in the winter 
was gained chiefl}' by looking at them from a distance. In 
summertime I often spent days or weeks in their midst. Such 
a nearby acquaintance with them in winter as Enos A. Mills 
had, when he traversed their lofty snow-fields to and fro as 
snow observer for the Government, was not my privilege. But 
very often when the snow-covered foot hills were fifteen 
miles away and the main range fifty miles or more, I have 
used my powerful glass to summon them very much nearer 
for the close inspection of a winter call. In that way they 
came to me when I could not go to them. 

To know a mountain well one must not onl}^ see it on 
many days but from many viewpoints. I often saw Pike's 
Peak from Pueblo, forty-five miles away. I saw it many 

[8] 



CATHEDRAL SPIRE, GARDEN OF THE GODS 



MOUNTAINS AS NEIGHBORS 

times from South. Park, fifty miles or more to the west. From 
the summits of Mount Lincoln and Gray's Peak, mountains 
of its own class, I saw its majestic form sixty-five and seventy 
miles away. I used to go into raptures of delight when I 
saw it from the Divide across the wide, pine-besprinkled 
valley of Monument Creek, when the rising sun flooded its 
summit with a rosy light that made it shine in glory over 
all its eastern realm. In the daytime, or by the light of the 
full moon, I have seen it from Longmont, ninety miles, 
and from Eaton, one hundred and twenty miles, to the north. 
I have climbed for weary hours to reach the top of Cameron 's 
Cone only to look up and see the Peak rising 3000 feet above 
me. From my Denver home I looked almost daily over the 
Divide and saw the Peak far beyond, sixty-five miles away in 
an air line. I have seen it from many points and distances out 
on the plains. I have camped at different points, miles apart, 
around its base. I have walked to its summit four times and 
have spent a night there. I have seen its white dome shining 
gloriously under a bright sun, out of black clouds far up in 
the sky, suspended in the air with no visible means of support. 
I have often seen it with a ^'nightcap" on, sure precursor of 
wind or rain. I have watched it in all manner of cloud com- 
binations and effects, and I have learned to have great 
respect for that old mountain landmark. When I saw it once 
after an absence of two years, I took off my hat to it as to 
an old and respected friend. 

' ' Hail, royal peak ! 
Child of eternity, on whose wrinkled brow 
The centuries mark their flight ; friend of the stars 
That through eternal years have watched with thee, 
Oh, rugged monarch of the Great Divide." 

[9] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

Mountains have many moods, owing to clouds, mist, 
vapor, density of the air, dust in the air, sunshine and 
shadows, snow and vegetation. On some days they seem 
blurred and indistinct, though no clouds hide them ; they 
seem unsocial, not caring for admirers. On some days they 
draw the clouds all around and over them and evidently are 
"not at home." On other days, they stand out with such 
startling distinctness that miles away one can see on their 
sides what evidently are small boulders. The sun intensely 
illuminates and the air magnifies them. Then it is that the 
newly arrived tourist at Denver is confident that he can 
walk to them before breakfast. If he does so he will want 
breakfast, dinner and supper together after a round-trip 
walk of thirty miles or so. "Come and see me, I'll meet you 
half way," they seem to say. At other times they scowl at 
you through a fierce storm, or play hide-and-seek behind the 
broken and swiftly moving clouds, hiding from us and from 
each other. Often the clouds go trailing in and out among the 
canons and valleys, softly touching the big rocks and searching 
out the hidden nooks. One morning when walking toward the 
foothills I saw two groups of clouds, a mile or two apart, one 
creeping ncrthw^ard along the flanks of the foothills, the 
other southward. What happened when they collided I could 
not wait to see. I heard no crash; probably they silently 
coalesced. 

In Oregon, where I spent one winter, and where it rains 
almost continuously at that season, Mount Hood, Mount 
Helens, Mount Rainier, and other peaks, so gloriously beautiful 
when they are on exhibition, hid themselves for months 
behind, as the sun did above, the great moist cloud bank, 
showing themselves only at rare intervals. In Colorado it 

[10] 



MOUNTAINS AS NEIGHBORS 

was a very unusual spell of weather that hid the mountains 
from us for three days. 

I recall that one autumn, Pike's Peak and its surrounding 
mountains, our near neighbors, were hid from us for two weeks 
or more by a great stationary bank of clouds, or smoke per- 
haps, in part, from burning forests far over the range. The 
winds brought it from afar and dumped it on our beautiful 
mountains and left it there. Morning after morning we 
looked westward to see and greet our great and good friends, 
robed in green and crowned with white. But we saw them 
not ; it was as though they were not. As day after day, and 
weeks even, passed and we saw them not we were troubled; 
life seemed dark and gloomy; we only half lived. "When will 
the clouds lift?" we asked of each other. "When shall 
we see the mountains again ? ' ' 

Finally one night, while we slept, the wind blew hard and 
long. The next morning we went out and looked where the 
mountains used to be, and Oh ! Oh ! — there they were 
again; clear, distinct, not one missing, gloriously illuminated 
by the sun, rejoicing in their Maker who had clothed them 
in green and white. We gazed long and exultingly, as though 
we saw them for the first time. They had heen there all the 
time. 

Are there times when a cloud of fear, of unrest, of doubt 
and unbelief settles down over our fondest hopes, our dearest 
beliefs ? Never mind ; keep on looking for them ; they are still 
there, and by and by 

"The clouds shall roll in splendor 
From the mountain tops away." 

A thunder storm on the mountains by day, and especially 
by night, is a fine sight — when seen from a safe distance. 



MY MOUNTAINS 

The sudden revealing and disappearing' of the mountain 
scenery, the terrific blow of the lightning bolt as it strikes 
some tree or rock, and sometimes, as I have seen, strikes it re- 
peatedly, in very quick succession, pounding itself in, as it 
were, helping to charge that great dynamo, the earth, the long 
moments — not minutes r— that pass before the thunder 
reaches one's ears, if it reach them at all, and the thunder 
reverberations that crash and roll and die away among the 
valleys and gorges ; all these are a thrilling exhibition of one 
of nature's great mysteries. But when riding horseback 
through the mountains in near proximity to the lightning and 
thunder, one feels differently. 

A forest fire, as seen on a mountain side, not many miles 
away, is a beautiful or a fearsome sight, according to circum- 
stances. Once on our way to Florida, being detained a few 
hours at Chattanooga, we saw a forest fire burning on the 
historic Lookout Mountain. One could imagine a battle 
raging there. My nine-year-old boy asked if it was General 
Sherman's soldiers carrying lanterns. 

Then there are the sunrises and sunsets ; the latter seen 
by more people than the former, some of them glorious beyond 
all possible description or picture representation ; a heavenly 
riot of color, flaming bands and vast strata of glorified clouds, 
sometimes involving half or more than half of the sky; fit 
backgrounds for armies of celestial beings and for heralds of 
heavenly messages. I am not describing them — I cannot. T 
can only hint at what they are. Some tourists who have eyes 
look that way and see not. Others there be who see and are 
stricken speechless. No words of our earth language can 
describe their emotions ; not laughter but a heavenly smile ; 
not weeping but moistened eyes; not raving but ecstatic joy; 

[12] 



MOUNTAINS AS NEIGHBORS 

not a story that can be told, but a brain picture that never 
fades, betoken their appreciation of such a sight. 

One such sunset on Pike's Peak seen, and partly caught 
by an artist friend of mine, and reproduced in color, was 
sold in unnumbered thousands to tourists and others. Many 
persons were kept busy for many weeks in putting the colors 
on each photograph. The colors were not all correct for that 
particular sunset, but it is safe to say that they were correct 
for some sunset from that mountain in the past, or for a com- 
posite picture of all the glorious sunsets seen from that peak 
or from all the peaks during the ages. 

Then there is the tender and marvellously beautiful rosy 
light, that flushes the snowy summits from the rising sun ere 
it has risen for the people below. I have often seen it, for I 
am an early riser. When seen, it more than repays one for 
early rising. Once seen it cannot be forgotten. It is the moun- 
tain 's blushing response to the fervent morning's kiss from 
the sun's rays. 

Some mountains have a very distinct individuality. 
Take Cheyenne Mountain, for instance, as seen from Colorado 
Springs, five miles or more away. It is about five miles long 
and some 10,000 feet high, or about 4000 feet above the near- 
by plains. It rises very abruptly from the plains and is quite 
steep and rugged on its eastern side. It is not a peak but a 
long symmetrical mountain that somehow is very satisfactory 
to look upon, especially after one has looked upon it for years. 

Of course the great volcanic peaks of the Northwest, like 
Hood, Rainier, Helens and Shasta, stand out very strikingly 
as individual mountains. Mount Whitney in southern Cali- 
fornia, and California's highest peak, is only a high point in 
a long high range, and from many viewpoints is scarcely dis- 
tinguishable from the other high points of the range. Mount 

[13] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

Shasta, in northern California, not quite so high as Mount 
Whitney, stands out very distinctly by itself, overshadowed 
by no neighboring mountains of any size. It can be seen and 
recognized at once from great distances. It is well to have 
one or more such mountains among our mountain neighbors. 
It is a good thing for a state or nation to possess one such 
mountain to be peculiarly its own mountain, its symbol and 
pride. Japan has such a mountain in Fujiyama. 

It is a pleasure to introduce our friends from the east, and 
tourists in general, to our good neighbors, the mountains, espe- 
cially if they are appreciative of them and are properly 
responsive to what is told them about the various views and 
objects of interest. But if they are unappreciative, or critical, 
hinting or saying they are disappointed, and suggesting that 
in the Garden of the Gods there is no garden and no gods — 
then I count my time and effort as wasted. How often I have 
hitched up my horse (no autos in those days, or even street 
cars) and taken some visiting minister to see Cheyenne 
Canon and Falls, the Garden of the Gods, Queen's Canon, 
William's Canon, Cave of the Winds, Ute Pass, Rainbow Falls, 
Iron Springs, etc., agreeing to show him the sights if he would 
preach for me on Sunday. Sometimes I got the best of the 
bargain, and sometimes he did. But I was never ashamed of 
my neighbors, and generally our visiting friends fell in love 
with them. 



[M] 



CHAPTER III 

HOW TO SEE THE MOUNTAINS 

ONE may walk all over Pike's Peak and closely examine 
5very part of it, enjoy its forests and flowers, its rocks 
and precipices, its vales and brooks and its ontlook upon 
other mountains, and yet not have seen Pike 's Peak. To see 
it as a mountain one must see it from a distance, from ten 
miles or more, a hundred miles or less. 

To see a mountain or mountain range is one thing ; 
and such seeing, whether once or often, is one of life's blessed 
experiences. To live in or near the mountains and know 
well their component parts, to be in intimate touch with them 
through happy vacation days, or through many years, to read 
and study their many open pages, — that, too, is a blessed 
experience, given to comparatively few of earth's mortals. 

The best way to see and really know the mountains is 
to live in a wide valley or on the open plain, where one has 
but to lift his eyes to see the mountains or the range, and so 
near to them that one can take frequent trips, lasting a day, 
a week, or a month, into, over, around and amongst them. 
Ideal places are found along that north and south line where 
the great mountains rise abruptly out of the great plains, 
also in numerous parks and valleys within the mountains. 
It is not best to have one's home in a narrow valley where 
one has no large outlook upon either mountains or plains. 

In Colorado, which is rightly called the Switzerland of 

['5] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

America, my home for many years was on the plains, bnt 
near the foothills, where I could see the high mountains from 
my west windows, and reach them in an hour or more, on 
foot, horseback, by trolley or by train. Of the three places 
in which I lived Colorado Springs was the ideal place. 

If one is a good walker and is not going far, walking is 
the best way of seeing and enjojdng the mountains. It 
seemed to be almost the only way for John Muir. Walking 
alone in the mountains, or with a genial companion, is per- 
haps the ideal way of enjoying them. If there are good 
roads, a bicj^cle or motorcycle can be used to advantage. 
But one is apt to take ''headers" if he gazes too intentty 
at the scenery. In August, 1900i, I took my wheel with me 
to the Black Hills for a two-weeks ' vacation and a mineral 
hunt. The roads there are hard and of good grades as a 
rule. On my first trip I broke a crank. A good Catholic 
blacksmith loaned me his wheel to be paid for in specimens. 
When he learned that I was not a mining engineer, as he 
had supposed, but a clergyman, he hinted that I might throw 
in some prayers ! I took fifteen trips with his wheel, with 
many dismounts, most of them voluntary ones, not all, and 
I shipped home nearly two hundred pounds of specimens, 
besides what I gave the blacksmith. 

When I went one day by road and trail to the sum- 
mit of Harney's Peak, over nine miles from Custer, I used 
the wheel six miles, to beautiful Sylvan Lake, and thence 
on foot and alone to the summit. On returning I raced on 
the wheel six miles with two thunder storms, getting wet 
through — with perspiration. From Harney's Peak, 7216 
feet high, which is in South Dakota, one can see on a clear 
day into Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana. Sylvan Lake 
and The Needles, both near Harney's Peak, are two of the 

[i6] 



HOW TO SEE THE MOUNTAINS 

most unique bits of scenery I found in all my mountain 
travels. The bold cliffs overhanging the tiny lake, and the 
huge boulders around it, are very unique, some of them 
almost inaccessible, while The Needles are finer by far than 
the famous Garden of the Gods in Colorado. A sloping pine- 
covered area, half a mile long and several hundred feet 
wide, is almost surrounded hy huge towers, sky-piercing 
pinnacles and splintered needles of granite, many of them 
hundreds of feet "high. AVild and rocky nooks, deep gorges, 
hidden springs and charming retreats abound on every side. 
Geologically, the Black Hills are an island in the great plains, 
a hundred miles or more from the mountains, whose geo- 
logical formations they duplicate. A study of them is very 
interesting, but that is a story by itself. 

One can go quite well over the mountains of Colorado 
on horseback, over regular roads and innumerable trails, 
and even through trailless glades and parks and open for- 
ests. It is a good way of seeing and enjoying the mountains, 
as I found in 1878 when I Avent horseback with some college 
professors from the East to Twin Lakes, Leadville, then a 
new and booming mining camj^, and to the summit of Mount 
Lincoln. 

Many go in camp Avagons, taking plenty of time and 
camping in choice spots, the chief requirements for Avhich 
are plenty of wood, good water, grass for the horses, and 
a dry tenting place with pleasant surroundings and good 
views. If one has not had experience in camping he should 
study and carry along a good book on camping out. 

One can go far and see much in a light buggy, depend- 
ing on the hospitality of miners, ranchmen, lumbermen, and 
occasional mining-camp hotels and boarding houses, and rail- 
road section houses, proffering sufficient pay, of course. 

[17] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

Sleeping: under the open sky, with one or two good blankets, 
is a healthy way of spending the night. 

Tens of thousands now go to the mountains in autos, 
carrying along their camping outfits. In two weeks or a 
month they can go very far and see very much, combining 
the independence of the camp wagon with the speed of the 
railroad. The danger is that one will see things in a super- 
ficial sort of Avay, seeing many things but not seeing much. 
Yet it may be the chief waJ^of seeing the mountains in the 
future, unless the aeroplane, one that can land on, or start 
from, any tolerably level spot, excels the auto. What bird's- 
eye views one will get in that way ! I would like thus to 
review all my mountain trips, but I never shall. 

Some mountains are best seen from the deck of a steam- 
boat. Several times by rail and several times by steamboat 
I have been up and down the Columbia River where it cuts 
through the Cascade Mountains. Leaping over great preci- 
pices there fall into that river some very beautiful water- 
falls. The cars run along the shores under the great cliffs, 
where the view of the high peaks is cut off, and where the 
waterfalls and other beauty spots are passed so rapidly 
that one scarcely sees them. But on the steamboat, out 
in the middle of the great river, one can see in a satis- 
factory way and time those glorious snow-covered volcanic 
peaks — St. Helens, Hood, Jefferson, Bakers, Adams and 
Rainier. And as the boat steams slowly along one sees in 
their entirety the beautiful waterfalls and gorges, brought 
nearer, — if one chooses, — by a good field-glass, which is 
very helpful on a boat, but of no use on a jarring, shaking 
car. 

The best steamboat trip to the mountains I ever 
took, and about the best of all my mountain trips of any 

[i8] ■ 



HOW TO SEE THE MOUNTAINS 

kind, was in 1904 from Seattle to Skagway in Alaska, going 
and coming on the same boat in eight days, a round trip of 
2000 miles. I have ridden on the Hudson, the Saint Law- 
rence, the Saint John 's, the Penobscot, the Kennebec, the Mis- 
sissippi and the Columbia Rivers, but the Alaskan trip is equal 
to all of them lengthened out and magnified. The Thousand 
Islands of the Saint Lawrence are beautiful, but the ten thou- 
sand islands, more or less, of the Alaskan trip are more than 
beautiful. It took about twenty-four hours to pass one of 
them, Vancouver, on which we saw a hundred miles or more 
of snowy mountains. 

It is mostly an inland passage. For only a few hours 
were we exposed to the ocean swell. Our boat made its 
way through countless gulfs, bays, sounds, straits, channels, 
inlets, passages, narrows and natural canals. Going through 
Seymour Narrows the swift tide doubled our speed as the 
mighty, boiling, eddying current swept us swiftly on. I was 
up at four A. M. to enjoy that experience. 

About all the land in sight was covered down to the 
water's edge by a dense unbroken forest. Eagles soar, 
gulls circle, wild ducks swim and fly, fish jump, porpoises 
roll and whales spout. 

At Ketchikan, a town built on piles and rocks, and with- 
out horses or ' wagons, we go on a plank walk a mile or 
so back into the woods. To leave the walk would involve 
one at once in a hopeless tangle of dense forest, fallen trees, 
water-soaked soil, slippery rocks and treacherous bogs. At 
Douglas the 900 stamps of one of the world's biggest gold 
mines make an unceasing din night and day the year around, 
except on Christmas and the Fourth of July. 

But the mountains that we saw! Ah, the mountains! 
With no fear, but with intense joy, we ran the gauntlet of 

[19] • 



MY MOUNTAINS 

savage peaks and ranges that unceasingly struck us with 
their beauty and grandeur. The hundreds upon hundreds 
of miles of snowy ranges, the great domes and towers of 
rock, the sharp Matterhorn peaks and pyramids, the vast 
uplifted fields of snow, the awful precipices, the wild gorges 
and wooded valleys, the great rivers of ice that crawl so 
slowly towards the sea and carve new landscapes as they 
crawl, even as they once carved Yosemite, the milky rivers 
that run from their snouts, the wild torrents that rage sea- 
ward over rocky beds, the numberless charming waterfalls 
and cascades — how shall I describe all these, especially the 
latter? 

Some of the waterfalls tumble directly into salt water; 
others appear as white tremulous curtains far up in the dark 
forest with no visible stream above or below; other streams 
are visible in their whole steep descent of thousands of feet 
in a long white line of foaming cascades and falls — not 
"Seven Falls" but seventy or more. Some of them are so 
near that we can hear their roaring; others are miles away, 
but my strong glass, companion of all my travels, brings 
them much nearer. 

On our return trip a two days' rain hid some of the 
mountain views, but it had swollen all the streams and turned 
every dry water course on the mountains into a tumbling 
torrent of foaming white water. From a scenic standpoint 
how fortunate it is that water turns white as it tumbles 
downward ! 

Steaming down the deep and narrow Greenville chan- 
nel for ninety miles in a nearly straight line, with steep 
wooded mountains on both sides, I saw hundreds of moun- 
tain streams coming down in a way that would put Southey's 
Lodore to shame. At one time I could see eight such 

[20] 



HOW TO SEE THE MOUNTAINS 

streams on one side of the channel and six on the other side. 
On that chilly August day I stood on deck for hours, photo- 
graphing waterfalls on my brain, revelling in the beauty of 
mountain streams, overflowing with joy and calling on my 
soul to praise the Maker of so much beauty. 

Some streams come out of far uplifted snowfields and 
fall into a dense layer of clouds, then out of the clouds into 
the forests, and then out of the forests into the ocean. 

Is that long white patch, some ten miles away, a snow- 
'drift or a waterfall? Lift the glass to your eyes and you 
can see the water crawling down through the air. It is 
Avater, but see ! lower clown it disappears under a great 
bank of snow. It reappears and then falls into a great white 
cloud. Again it reappears and then falls into the dark forest 
that covers a great uplifted amphitheater. Hide-and-seek 
creek let us call it. 

Off to the east we see a hundred miles or more of snowy 
peaks, many of them one or two miles above the water. To 
the north and west are similar ranges. We are encircled 
by mountain ranges. The clouds- play hide-and-seek among 
the valleys, or stretch in great banks along the mountain 
sides. Peak after peak and one great snow field after an- 
other heave into sight from behind some lofty island. In 
grand and stately procession the peaks and ranges, the 
glaciers and waterfalls, march in review before us. It is 
a moving picture that lasts from four in the morning until 
ten at night, and for day after day. I begrudge the few 
hours of darkness that I must give to sleep. 

Is there another such trip in all the world? Yes, among 
the fiords on the coast of Norway, they say. Let those who 
have taken both trips compare the two. I cannot. 

[21] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

I shall not soon forget the sunset of our last full day 
when homeward bound. It was on the Gulf of Georgia. 
The sun had gone down and left a glory of gold in the sky 
and water. The water was like a sea of glass. A number 
of whales were spouting, rising out of the water and slowly 
turning and diving. A hundred miles of snowy mountains 
on the mainland to the east, and another hundred miles of 
them to the west on Vancouver's Island, faded slowly from 
i^iew in the twilight. The forest reflections in the water 
were black, and jet black was the circling wave made on 
each side of our boat. Our steamer's black smoke streamed 
behind us for miles, blended with the smoke of another 
steamer, and formed a black cloud lying low on the northern 
horizon. The wake of our boat was a broad belt of sapphire. 
On either side of that blue wake were long narrow roads of 
rippling wavy sapphire waters, alternating with similar ones 
of gold, and all radiating like a fan far to the rear. Slowly 
the stars came out above and their images in the water be- 
low. Then the moon arose and was reproduced in the water 
as a long beam of silver that reached from our boat to the 
distant shore. A hush came over the passengers. The dullest 
among them could but admire that glorious view of water 
and land, of sky and mountains. Thus gloriously faded 
from our eyes, never to fade from memory, that last day of 
our glorious voyage through that northern land of wonders. 

Besides seeing the mountains on foot, horseback, with 
a bicycle, motorcycle or auto, with a buggy or camp wagon, 
from the deck of a steamboat or by aeroplane, there is one 
other way, a way that greatly facilitates what one person 
can see, and immensely multiplies the number of those who 
see the mountains at all, and that is seeing them from the 
car window. 

[22] 



HOW TO SEE THE MOUNTAINS 

"When I went to Colorado in 1876 there were no rail- 
roads in the mountains except a few miles from Denver up 
Clear Creek to Georgetown and Central. There was not even 
a road through the Royal Gorge of the Arkansas. When a 
little later two railroads had armed forces in or near that 
gorge, contending for its control, a restaurant there had this 
scale of prices : Lunch, 25 cents ; common meal, 50 cents ; 
square meal, 75 cents ; Royal Gorge, one dollar. 

Hi a few years the Colorado Mountains were threaded 
by thousands of miles of steel rails that opened up new 
farming valleys, new mining regions, new mountain ranges, 
and of course many new resorts for health seekers and 
mountain-loving tourists. Those railroads do a great deal 
of twisting and turning ; long distances of straight track 
are scarce, and some of the grades are very steep. 

I remember taking a short trip, starting from Boulder, 
thirteen miles into the mountains and 3000 feet skyward, 
on a narrow gauge track. The engine drew with difficulty 
four cars. On one steep grade the train went so slow that 
I stepped off and walked, looking for specimens and ready 
to push behind if necessary. A span of horses in the wagon 
road kept up with us for a long distance. At times the 
engine wheels flew uselesslj^ around. No one complained of 
not having time enough to see the scenery. In a wild canon 
and apparently far from any settlement we saw a white 
building and on it the sign. School District No. 52. A school- 
house in those wilds ! And No. 52 in a county which a few 
years before consisted of unexplored mountains and sun- 
burnt plains! 

At the rail terminus we look to a mountain top 2000 feet 
above us and a mile or two away, and see the end of the 
graded line, which the rails will reach by running down the 

[23] 



MY MOUNTAIN'S 

valley but uphill and around hills for eight miles. No steam 
is used on the return trip, which seemed like one prolonged 
plunge down into the depths of the canon on a race with 
the mountain stream. 

Let us square a mountain circle and see what we can see 
from a car window in two days or less, traveling only by 
day. Our circle, as one sees it on the map, is more like 
a square whose boundary lines, especially on the north and 
south, are very wavy and crooked. It is 428 miles around, 
151 on what was the South Park branch of the Union Pacific, 
and 277 miles on the Denver and Rio Grande. 

We start from Denver and after twenty-one miles of 
tame scenery, except for the mountain background, our 
train turns to the right and plunges into the foothills. Very 
soon the rocks are rising hundreds of feet above us on either 
side, and the South Platte River is dashing over the rocks, 
now on one side of us and now on the other. We are in 
the Platte Canon and for fifty miles we follow the tortuous 
windings of the river. We pass Dome Rock, a great bare 
dome of granite that rises far above us, and Needle Buttes, 
laming our necks in watching their dizzy heights. We see 
many fishermen enjoying the rare sport of trout-fishing, and 
numerous camping parties in the park-like openings. A few 
miles of steep grades and sharp curves and we reach Kenosha 
Hill, 10,200 feet above the sea. We have risen 1000 feet in 
seven miles and 5000 in the seventy-six miles from Denver. 
The air feels cool on a midsummer day. 

We start again, downhill now, and in a few miles and 
minutes the train turns to the right, and what a glorious 
sight! Are we out on the plains again? No, but we are 
looking down and out on the South Park, far out to those 
mountains on the southern horizon. It is forty miles across 

[24] 



I 



HOW TO SEE THE MOUNTAINS 

the Park. We do not see it all, for there are pine-covered 
hills and ridges, once islands and peninsulas, that break the 
level floor. 

It is surrounded by mountain ranges, from many of 
whose summits the whole park lies in sight beneath. The 
Park's altitude is nearly 10,000 feet. A swift run of ten 
miles brings us to Como. We turn to the right, pass some 
gulch mines, make a great rising curve and come out on the 
edge of a steep mountain and again look down and out on the 
Park. The scenery is magnificent all the time now. Across 
the valley are great snowdrifts and vast stretches of fallen 
timber, where millions of beautiful little evergreens are 
springing up to make a beauty spot for the next generation 
of tourists. Once as we looked back and down on the Park 
from a narrow valley an optical illusion lifted it far up and 
above us into the clouds, as though a part of earth were 
ascending to heaven. 

Ascending more than a thousand feet in five miles we 
reach Boreas, on the Continental Divide, 11,750 feet high. 
It is twelve miles down to Breckenridge, and what a ride it 
is! Timber line is just above us, then great steep stretches 
of grass and flowers, of snow and rock, up to the top of 
Bald Mountain. For miles and miles the magnificent forest, 
densely grown, of straight tall evergreens, stretches over 
great swelling rounded hills. Here and there the blue smoke 
curls upward from the cabin of some lonely miner, a blue 
mist hangs over the valleys. We are on the headwaters of 
the Blue, which, through the Grand and Colorado Rivers, 
fiows to the Pacific. Our train crawls slowly around the 
edge of rocky precipices. Great rocks hang over the track. 
The trees are torn, bruised and crushed by the showers 
of rock which the railroad builders hurled down upon them. 

[25] 



MY MOUNTAINS 



■ 



We come out on a hill just above Breckenridge but 
we are not there vet. We twist and turn and run far back 
up the valley bnt downhill and at last reach Breckenridge. 
Six miles down the Bine and then we ascend Ten Mile 
Canon, underneath great mountains, with ever-changing 
combinations of the grand and the beautiful, of beetling 
crags and grass}' plats, of great rugged mountains, on whose 
bosoms bloom the daintiest flowers. 

We pass Kokomo and Robinson, once lively mining 
camps, but wearing now a subdued look as though it were 
Sunday all the time. The range between Breckenridge and 
Kokomo is exceedingly wild and rugged, a fit place for A 
storms to brew. I knew a brave minister who frequently 
crossed that range on foot and at the risk of life to preach 
the Gospel in mining camps. M 

Again we cross the Continental Divide, via Fremont, 
on Ten Mile Pass, at an altitude of 11,325 feet. The four- 
teen miles to Leadville are a fresh delight. For miles our 
train runs on the side of the mountains. I sit on the rear 
platform and feast my eyes on the beautiful valley several 
hundred feet below us. It looks like a smooth, gently-sloping 
floor, carpeted with green. I can see, but not hear, the stream 
of water, headwater of the Arkansas, as it winds and twists, 
coil on coil, like the gliding of an endless serpent. 

We are drawing near to Leadville, the far-famed silver 
camp. The smoke from its smelters lies over it like a great 
cloud. At 10,000 feet the air is too light for smoke to rise 
much higher. Leadville will bear study, but we are studying 
mountain scenery, not towns. We have bounded our moun- 
tain square on the north. 

The next day, on the D. and R. G. R. R., we bound it 
on the three other sides. On the west side we follow the 

[26] 



HOW TO SEE THE MOUNTAINS 

Arkansas River 157 miles, through a wide but gradually 
narrowing valley; a valley that played an important part 
in the early history of Colorado. Murders, hangings, Indian 
fights, robberies, bitter feuds between ranchmen and miners 
— these were of frequent occurrence years ago. In one place 
a judge was shot dead on the bench. Peace reigns now over 
that beautiful valley. 

The Saguache Range, backbone of the continent, is on 
our right, to the west. We pass Mounts Massive, Elbert, 
Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Antero, Shavano, and Ouray, all 
snow-capped, all over 14,000 feet high, all separated by wild 
canons that send down beautiful mountain streams to join 
the Arkansas. Regal king of all is Mount Princeton, flanked 
on either side by great symmetrical valleys up in the clouds, 
that separate the main peak from two lower peaks, one on 
either side. I saw that mountain and others near it when 
its green feet were bathed in a golden mist through which 
the sun was shining, while its snowy summit rested against 
the background of a very black thunder cloud. 

Then on the right and to the south we watch with de- 
light the sharp peaks and deep valleys of the Sangre-de- 
Christo (Blood of Christ) Range, one of Colorado's most 
beautiful ranges, one whose close acquaintance I was never 
permitted to make, but which I have often admired at a 
distance from different lofty viewpoints. 

Two miles below Salida is Cleora — or was. The rail- 
road sign was still standing, a standing joke, but not a 
building of any kind remained to mark the site of a town 
that was once flourishing and had great expectations. The 
railroad located Salida two miles above, to which Cleora 
•moved her buildings. Only the cemetery remained. 

Now we enter the Arkansas Canon. I was through it 

[27] 



MY MOUNTAINS 



eleven times that year, and man}^ times in other years, but 
never tired of looking at those great walls that rise 1800 feet 
above the river, and at one point only about fifty feet apart 
at the base. It is where the bridge is suspended over the 
side of the stream and braced against the opposite wall. 
The Royal Gorge is truly grand, but there is nothing beauti- 
ful about it. It is wild, rugged, grand, sublime. Because it 
is called the Grand Canon of Colorado, some tourists with 
a poor knowledge of western geography, after going through 
it think and assert that they have been through the Grand 
Canon of the Colorado, which is a thousand miles or so south- 
west, three times as deep, and of vaster length, and through 
which no railroad runs. 

This time I go through the Gorge by moonlight. I lean 
my head out of the window, dangerous in some places, and 
watch the moonlight on the top of the walls, the dark 
shadows underneath, and the roaring stream that vainly tries 
to keep up with the train. The road is all curve and one 
can see the engine almost continually on one side or the 
other. 

Canon City is just below the Royal Gorge. Still follow- 
ing the Arkansas River forty miles bring us to Pueblo, 
through a valley many miles wide. The Greenhorn Range 
is far to our right and Pike 's Peak far to our left. The river 
bed is ever shifting, a small Missouri with a swifter cur- 
rent. For 500 miles further it saunters in well-earned re- 
pose through shifting sands and fertile states to join the 
Father of Waters. 

At Pueblo our train turns square north and runs on the 
plains, but near and in plain sight of the mountains, 120 
miles to Denver, along the Fountain Creek, on the trail which 
Pike took in 1805 when he discovered Pike's Peak. For a 

[28] 



.; I 



HOW TO SEE THE MOUNTAINS 

long distance we get fine views of the Peak and of Cheyenne 
Mountain, Cameron's Cone, and other mountains in the 
Pike's Peak Range. We pass Colorado Springs with Mani- 
tou five miles away. We follow Monument Creek to Palmer 
Lake, where the railroad touches the foothills and at 7000 
feet crosses the wooded Divide, which juts many miles from 
the mountains and into the plains. Then a swift run of 
fifty miles downhill, with a drop of 2000 feet, and we are 
at Denver again. The square is circled and the circle is 
squared. We are fed up on mountains and can rest for a few 
days. 



[29] 



CHAPTER IV I 

CAMPING IN THE MOUNTAINS 

^^AMFING alone. When feeling the need of a good rest 
^^ I would sometimes go off by myself to some quiet restful 
spot in the mountain and camp alone for a few days, taking 
tent, bedding, food, a few cooking utensils, a mineral pick and 
a little reading matter. Thus I got the best kind of rest, eating 
heartily, sleeping soundly, feasting on scenery, planning and 
praying over my work, hunting flowers and minerals, basking 
in the sun, hiding in strange rocky nooks, watching the trains 
as they seemed to crawl over the distant plains, searching the 
heavens with my glass at night and the earth around and 
beneath by day. Lonesome ? Not at all. How can one be 
lonesome in a place where 

"The book of nature lies open wide 
With a thousand uncut pages'?" 

My pick that I carried many years in my mountain trips 
I had made to order. It was light, with a hammer on one side 
and a sharp point on the other. The handle was of the right 
length to be used as a cane. It was my only weapon in case of 
a possible attack by a wild beast, but never thus used. 

I well remember two places where I camped alone. One 
was close up on the eastern base of Cheyenne Mountain, the 
great mountain on one side, the great plains on the other. I 
was five miles from Colorado Springs and some 500 feet above 

[30] 











jT' 



CAMPING IN THE MOUNTAINS 

it. I could look down on the whole city and those who knew 
which way to look could plainly see my white tent. Feed for 
my horse was plenty ; there were several fine springs, and a 
ranch house a half mile away. I saw only two teams pass in 
six days. Close to my tent was an empty cabin with a good 
fireplace. I found it useful in a drizzling rain on Sunday. 

The outlook was grand and beautiful, twenty-five miles 
north to the Divide, fifty miles or more out on the plains, 
and seventy-five to the south, far beyond Pueblo. On the west 
it was true the mountains obstructed the view ! The sun set an 
hour earlier than at Colorado Springs. The trains looked like 
black snakes creeping noiselessly up and down the Fountain 
valley, in sight for an hour or so. On a breezy knoll I sat in 
perfect comfort on hot days and with my good glass watched 
the city, the trains, the droves of cattle that looked like mice, 
the distant teams that appeared as black specks, and the cloud 
shadows as they chased each other over their play-ground of 
some 5000 square miles. 

Not far from my camp was a family that had lived in 
Illinois, Minnesota, Kansas, Oregon and Colorado, and were 
soon going back to Oregon. The rolling stone had gathered 
no moss, but they had accumulated eight children. 

After awhile my camp was not so quiet, for eleven of my 
Sundayschopl boys came and camped with me for three days, 
and then there was music in the air all day, and also at night 
when the lights were out and the boys lay on my tent floor in 
two rows with their feet touching, and tried to go to sleep ! 

Crystal Park. The most delightful spot where I ever 
camped alone was in Crystal Park, an irregular park, or val- 
ley, at the base of Cameron's Cone, a little south of Manitou 
but far above it, up on the mountain side, at an altitude of 
about 9000 feet. A steep road had been built to it at a grade 

[31] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

of about 1000 feet to the mile. It is not so much a park as a 
large uplifted valley, full of small vallej^s and hills, gloomy 
canons, pine forests, poplar groves, grassy hillsides, immense 
boulders, fantastic rocks, crystalline waters, crystalline rock 
and crystalline air. Three mountain streams come down as 
many valleys and unite near the entrance and form a creek 
that then tumbles thousands of feet down to the Fountain 
Creek. Near b}^ are the crystal beds, where are precious few 
crystals but much crystalline rock, also many prospect holes 
dug in the loose gravel with no trace of silver or gold. Prob- 
ably they were dug to sell as mines to gullible buyers. 

From the ridge east of the park I had some fine views. 
Manitou nestles beneath us in its mountain valley. The Gar- 
den of the Gods a few miles away has shrunk in size but not 
in beauty. On the edge of the plains is Colorado Springs, 
regular as a chessboard, neat, and beautiful for situation. Be- 
yond are the great plains, north, south and east. Dimmer 
rjid dimmer they grow until they blend with the horizon away 
out toward the Kansas line. 

It is six miles in an air line to my house but with my 
glass I can easily see a signal if I am wanted at home. I can 
see my children at play, the chickens around the barn, and 
the time of day by the town clock. When I go home I surprise 
my wife b}^ asking her who it was that called on a certain day. 
driving a white horse. 

Is there any wild game ? Yes, scores of chipmunks 
surround my tent and boldly enter to steal my food. In some 
of the pinewoods I see tracks that make me feel in a hurry 
to get back to my tent. A few months before a horse was 
so badly mangled by a "mountain lion" that he had to be shot. 

A wild game more to my liking is the wild raspberr}^, and, 
still better, the fine smoky quartz crystals, or cairngorm stone, 

[32] 



CAMPING IN THE MOUNTAINS 

falsely called topaz, of wliicli I found in one "nest" a half 
bushel or so, most of which were stolen by a man whom I got 
to carr}^ them home for me. But he could not steal the fun 
that I had in digging them, a fun far finer and better than 
killing some of God's tame animals that men call wild. Of 
all natural sports, and recreations there is nothing that gives 
me such joy and delight as digging beautiful crystals out of 
the earth. It is pure crystalline fun. 

As at the other place there came and camped two days 
with me some of my Sundayschool boys, members of my 
Boys'' Exploring Association, who had been with me a few 
days before when we discovered the now famous Cave of the 
Winds at Manitou. (See Chapter XII) Again there was 
music in the air and through the park. Some of us climbed 
Cameron's Cone and made the ascent, about 2000 feet above 
camp, in two hours. There was no trail, so we made our way 
up through pine forests where the ground was covered with 
big boulders and these interlaced with great numbers of fallen 
trees. AVe were well repaid by the view from the summit. 

Years after I camped there, John Hay bought the park 
and lived there for a time. It is said that he wrote there part 
of his life of Lincoln. Tourists who go to Manitou now can 
easily reach Crystal Park in autos over a zigzag mountain 
road. 

Wind. In the rear of Cheyenne Mountain a friend and 
myself camped just one night at a spot where we had gone for 
crystals. We slept in his double spring wagon, or tried to 
sleep. The zephyrs came before sleep did. That night the 
wind blew eighty-four miles an hour on Pike's Peak, and we 
were not far from Pike's Peak. It was a warm west wind, a 
sort of " Chinook. " AVe had plenty of bedding, and did not 
suffer from the cold, but rather from constant fear lest our 

[33] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

wagon-bed should blow over. We filially tied a rope to the 
wagon top, and fastened it to a big log. Then we ' ' earnestly 
wished for day. ' ' There wonld come a lull for a few moments 
and then far up the mountain side we could hear the next blast 
coming, roaring and crashing through the pines, drawing 
nearer and nearer, "louder yet and yet more loud," while we 
braced ourselves and made ready to go over if the rope should 
break. With a noisy flutter of leaves and branches and a wild 
swajdng of tree tops the blast would go past us. As we heard 
it roaring its way down the valley" we could hear the next one 
coming. Towards morning the wind ceased and we got a little 
sleep. 

Seven Lakes. I spent a week one July, at Seven Lakes, 
about four miles south of the summit of Pike 's Peak, at an alti- 
tude of 11,432 feet, a mile higher than Mount Washington 
and a half mile or so lower than Pike 's Peak. The largest lake 
is a mile around. They are fed by springs. I have heard that 
for irrigation or for city water they have been merged into one 
large reservoir lake. The amphitheater of hills in which they 
lie has a remarkable echo. It begins at the right, circles 
around to the left and gradually dies away among the hills. 
There were occasional frosts in the morning, hail in the after- 
noon, rain in the night that leaked through on my bed, and 
snow on the Peak. At night and in the morning a fire was 
necessary. When I left Denver the strawberry season was 
mtII over. At 9000 feet I found delicious wild strawberries. 
At 12,000 feet they were just in bloom. 

I took long walks alone into lonely places where human 
feet rarely tread, always keeping a sharp lookout for wild 
beasts, whose fresh tracks I occasionally saw. Three bison 
were seen one morning near by, remnant of a herd that for 
years made its home in the mountains west of the Peak. I 

[34] 



CAMPING IN THE MOUNTAINS 

wandered one day down toward a region southwest where 
parties from Colorado Springs used to go berrying and trout 
fishing. If I had kept on a few miles further and searched 
closely I might perchance, possibly, who knows? have dis- 
covered what in later years became the world's great gold 
camp, Cripple Creek. It was right there even then, but undis- 
covered. It was in my mountains but the gold was not for me. 
Again and again in those mountains I found something better 
than gold. On my twenty-mile walk back to Colorado Springs 
I lost my sole, one of them, and had to go at once and buy a 
new pair of shoes. It was part of the price that I paid for 
spending that July week in a cool and rocky region. 

A camping trip. When I went to Colorado in 1876 it 
was a popular thing, and still is I trust, for a whole family, 
or several families together, to go into the mountains on a 
camping trip. Some go for pleasure merely, some for rest 
from weary cares, some for health, some from pure love of 
nature, some to fish or hunt, some to collect flowers or 
minerals, some to do missionary work, and some hoping to 
find a silver or gold mine. We went for nearly all those rea- 
sons except the last. 

It was in 1877. We began to talk about it in the spring 
and enjoyed the anticipation of it for several months. We 
decided to go as far as Twin Lakes, about 125 miles, and be 
gone four weeks. There were twelve of us, three men, seven 
ladies, a boy of twelve, and our own girl of two and a half 
years. The New England pastor was in search of health, so 
were some of the ladies. I was after health, recreation, trout, 
minerals, scenery and missionary fields. I found them all. 
We had one double wagon, my own single wagon, and two 
saddle horses. We took two tents, a large amount of bedding, 
and about 600 pounds of provisions. We were overloaded and 

[35] 



MY MOUNTAIN'S 



1 



made slow progress at first in climbing Ute Pass. We camped 
the first night at Manitou. Camped, but did not sleep 
much. The next morning we started up Ute Pass, which had 
then an immense traffic, as there was no railroad to the great 
mining regions beyond, including Leadville whose silver riches 
had just been discovered. In a narrow place with high rocks 
on one side and a precipice on the other we met a Mexican 
freighting outfit of six or eight wagons heavily loaded with 
ore and each drawn by four or five yoke of oxen. At this first 
steep pull my horse stopped and refused to budge an inch. 
The other driver, an experienced mule-whacker, got astride 
of him and persuaded him to move. At noon we had gone 
eight miles only and at night six miles more. Prom our camp 
that night we had a fine view of Pike's Peak from the west, 
with its great "abysses of desolation." Around our camp fire 
we each repeated a Bible verse about mountains. Glorious 
indeed was the view of Pike 's Peak the next morning with its 
dark forests, its gray crags and white snow fields, all flooded 
with the rosy light from the rising sun. 

That day we made twenty miles, mostly down grade, 
passing the petrified stumps and the wonderful bed of fossil 
insects of living species, flies, spiders, mosquitos, etc. The next 
day we went ten miles and camped in the edge of South Park 
near the foot of Puma Pass. I spent part of the afternoon 
in digging fine tourmaline crystals on the mountain side. On 
Saturday we went nearly across South Park, passing some 
very strong sulphur springs. We camped over Sunday at the 
salt works, where Colorado got its supply of salt before any 
railroad had crossed the plains. I rode on Sunday four miles 
to visit a union Sundayschool maintained by a few scattered 
settlers, passing a large salt creek that sprang directly out 
of the ground. On Monday we drove down Trout Creek^ 

[.36] 



CAMPING IN THE MOUNTAINS 

twenty miles and camped near the Arkansas River, on the 
spot where is now Bnena Yista. 

The horse I drove that afternoon was of the broncho 
breed. He plodded along- so quietly, I was thinking he would 
make a good family horse, when suddenly and with no ap- 
parent cause, while going- down a rocky hill, he began to kick 
the dashboard furiously with his hind legs and to run away 
with his front legs. My wife and child were with me under 
the canvas cover. The little girl seemed to think the horse in 
more danger than we were and begun to say, ^'Poor horsie, 
poor horsie." I offered some ejaculatory prayers mixed in 
with my "whoas. " My wife kept quiet and calm, and on 
we dashed down the hill. Fortunately my harness was weak 
and at the foot of the hill my horse broke loose from it and left 
us there in the road while he ran on and out of sight. I tied up 
the broken thill and harness as best I could with old rope, put 
my own horse into service and drove on, very thankful no one 
was hurt. 

Tuesday we camped at the Hot Springs, one hundred 
miles from home, at the mouth of Cottonwood Canon and 
under the shadow of majestic Mount Princeton. After a 
week's dusty travel we enjoyed bathing in water heated in 
the earth's depths, and we kept the old log bath house in 
pretty constant use. 

After three days of resting, bathing and fishing we pushed 
on over very rocky roads and reached Twin Lakes late Satur- 
day night. Probably it was because we were so tired and 
hungry that the bear steak we had for supper tasted so 
deliciously good. It depends on how hungry one is, whether 
he likes bear meat or not. 

Lake Creek, a swiftly rushing stream, which we forded at 
some risk, as did Bayard Taylor's party years before, flows 



MY MOUNTAINS 

through both lakes, which are divided by a narrow strip of 
land. The lower lake is three miles long and covers about 
2000 acres. The upper lake is a mile in diameter and covers 
700 acres. The two lakes were originally one, whose receding 
waters have left interesting beach lines on the surrounding 
hills. The lakes are of glacial origin. In the early days, im- 
mense quantities of gold were taken out of the placer mines 
in the sands and gravel beds of the terminal morraine, where 
the creek empties into the Arkansas. 

We camped for a week on the upper shore of the upper 
lake, close up to Twin Peaks and Mount Elbert, whose snow- 
capped summits rose a mile or more above the lakes and were 
beautifully reflected from their surface. The altitude of the 
lakes is nine or ten thousand feet. 

On Sunday afternoon I rode eight miles to Granite to 
hold a service. It rained all the way and there were thunder 
storms on three sides. Granite was a rough mining town we 
had passed through the day before, where we saw the grave of 
the judge who was shot while holding court. An attentive 
audience of thirty-five gathered in a dance hall. One young 
man was very full of religious responses but finally staggered 
from the room so drunk he could hardly stand ; the first really 
intoxicated person I had seen during my first year in Colo- 
rado. That night we had a praise meeting by the side of the 
beautiful lake and under the shadows of the great mountains, 
singing around our camp fire the grand old songs of Zion. 

We spent the week in boating, fishing, mineralizing, 
botanizing, berrying, sketching, climbing, lounging, eating 
and sleeping. We had at one time or another, trout, elk, 
venison, mountain sheep, bear meat, grouse and Avild duck, 
most of them through the kindness of neighboring campers, 

[38] 



CAMPING IN THE MOUNTAINS 

for ours was not a hunting party and not much of a fishing 
party. We had no guns in our outfit. 

One day two young ladies of our party went tliree miles 
for raspberries. They became separated on the mountain- 
side, a heavy rain came on, and one of them came into camp 
alone. There were bears berrying on that mountain and the 
creek had to be crossed in a dangerous place. We sent our 
driver with a horse after the missing one and before dark he 
brought her to camp, safe but wet. 

One day a man and two ladies, not of our party, climbed 
Mount Elbert. While resting in a grove near timber line they 
noticed a deer looking at them out of a near-by clump of 
bushes. "Hist," said the man, then quietly pulled off his 
gloves, took quick aim and the deer fell dead. Alas that the 
beautiful thing should be thus shot down in his own home! 
I could not have done it. But the venison tasted good, I was 
sure of that. 

The driver of our double wagon was a character in his 
way. For years he had led a rough life as teamster on the 
plains. One day he went into a cabin to get some novels to 
read. He found a Bible instead and for two years or more 
he carefully read it. On our camping trip his light reading 
was Edwards on Redemption. I had baptized him a few 
months before, and when a year later I married him to a 
young lady who had been one of our camping party, he said 
nothing about any fee. His name was Goodrich and her name 
was Squires. A few weeks later he brought me from his ranch 
two dressed ducks and twelve live roosters, a Good-rich wed- 
ding fee, I thought, fully Squireing the account. 

Our second Sabbath at Twin Lakes brought us the finest 
views and crowning blessing of our whole trip. Just as the 
sun was going down behind Mount Elbert, we gathered for 

[39] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

our praise meeting. As it threatened rain we went into our 
tent. Going out for a moment, I immediately called the whole 
company out to see the finest mist and sunshine display T 
had yet seen in Colorado. The whole vast mountain-side was 
covered with mist and falling rain and down through it all the 
sun was shining with a subdued yet golden brilliancy thai 
words cannot describe. The ruggedness of the mountain-side 
was concealed and the sharp peaks and crags that before had 
seemed so near, now seemed, as seen through that golden mist, 
miles and miles away. Some of our party were artists and we 
all had eyes for the beautiful, and we stood there and admired 
the glorious scene with many an exclamation of delight. The 
big drops of rain soon drove us into the tent. Lingering out- 
side to get the last view, I soon saw another sight more glorious 
than the first. In a moment the tent was emptied again and 
we all stood there in the rain gazing on the most brilliant rain- 
bow we had ever seen. The right of the bow, as we faced it, 
rested on the edge of the lake a few rods away. The left rested 
on the trees, turning the dark green of the pines into brilliant 
red and orange and yellow. The bow was a perfect half circle, 
each color distinctly marked through its whole length. The 
colors grew more and more distinct and brilliant until a second 
bow appeared and the eastern sky fairly reveled in the gor- 
geousness of color. The bow faded as it slowl}^ moved across 
the lake. Soon it was all gone ; the rain had passed ; the 
sun had gone behind Mount Elbert, and we went into our 
tent to sing with glad hearts the praises of Him who had 
spoken to us through the beautiful bow in the cloud. 

Monday ! How often it is in marked contrast with Sun- 
day. Early in the morning we folded our tents and noisily 
marched away on the homeward journey. Before going many 
miles I had lost from my wagon, and been obliged to go back 

[40] 



CAMPING IN THE MOUNTAINS 

some distance after, the camp stove, a tent pole,, a pail and the 
coffee pot. When we went into camp that night a fierce storm 
of wind and rain burst upon ns. There were no rainbows in 
the sky, nor in onr feelings, when I tried to put up a tent in 
a high wind, and when the front wheels of our double wagon 
stuck fast in an irrigating ditch. 

The next day at noon lunch one of our horses strayed 
away and our party became separated for the night, one part 
having the food and the other part the dishes. Another 
night after we had pitched our tent in a pleasant spot a dead 
mule was discovered in unpleasant proximity. The ladies in- 
sisted that we move the tents or bury the mule ; I tried to do 
the latter, but not very successfully. 

Just four weeks from the day we started we descended 
Ute Pass and looked out once more on the great plains. We 
were a ragged, dusty and dilapidated, but healthy and jolly 
lot of mountain campers. At Manitou we had our picture 
taken, which see. It does not show the hundred pounds 
of minerals in my wagon, nor the eighty varieties of wild 
flowers which some of the ladies had pressed. Nor does it 
show the enormous appetites we brought back with us. When 
within a few miles of home I lost the tire from one of my 
wagon wheels and never found it. As I drove slowly through 
Colorado Springs that night, people stared at us and wondered 
whose dilapidated outfit that was, just in from the mountains. 

We discovered during that trip, as camping parties 
usually do, that we were not all angels, but we agreed to for- 
get all unpleasant things, and so very pleasant, after the lapse 
of years, is the memory of that months' camping trip in the 
Rocky Mountains. We pitched our tents, and took them down, 
fourteen times. 

Another trip. The next year in company with some old 

[41] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

friends, college professors from Oberlin, I took another trip 
over nearl}^ the same route. We visited the famons mining 
camp of Leadville which then, in 1878, was a booming camp 
of several thousand people, though a long way from any rail- 
road. It was a rough, wicked place, wide open, full of for- 
tune hunters, mining shafts going down in every direction 
and men prospecting the mountains for miles around. A 
man would dash into town on his horse or mule, take some ore 
to an assay office, and dash away again with visions of wealth 
dancing before his eyes. 

I slept two nights on the ground under a new schoolhouse, 
and slept pretty well considering I was awakened once by 
drunken men going to their cabin at a late hour, and once or 
more by a stray mule that was trying to steal the hay I was 
using for a pillow, and for which I had paid at the rate of 
ninety dollars a ton. I was saving it for my horse and did 
not care to share it with another man \s mule. 

Just as we struck the Arkansas River on our way to Twin 
Lakes we passed two newly made graves. A miner told us 
that a day or two before two horse thieves, who had been fol- 
lowed 150 miles, were overtaken at that point, and showing 
fight they were both shot. One of them, a young woman 
dressed in men's clothes, was instantly killed. The other lived 
a few minutes, said the young woman was his wife, that they 
both belonged to respectable families in the east, refused to 
give their names, asked for a decent burial, and died. One of 
our mountain home missionaries happened along, helped to 
make rough coffins and gave a decent burial to those unknown 
and erring youth. 

For an account of our ascent of Mount Lincoln on that 
trip see next chapter. 

A Family Camp. In the summer of 1886 I looked around 

[42] 



CAMPING IN THE MOUNTAINS 

for a quiet, pleasant place where m}^ wife and three children 
and her sister and her three children could run wild for a few 
weeks and w^ear out their old clothes. I found such a place 
in Pleasant Park, forty miles south of and 1500 feet above 
Denver. It is tive miles long and from one to three miles 
wide. On the west and south it is bounded by mountains that 
rise abruptly 2000 feet or more. On the east and north it is 
bounded by a wire fence. It contains a wonderful variety of 
pine groves, grassy slopes, green valleys, wild canons, lonely 
dells, mountain streams, foaming cascades, high precipices, 
wierd red rocks, dark caverns, beaver dams, gypsum beds, 
beautiful birds and a profusion of wild flowers and wild fruits, 
and a few wild animals, like the coyote, the beaver, the badger, 
the wolf, and once in awhile a bear, a mountain lion, or a 
rattlesnake. 

Pleasant Park is a paradise for the geologist, a great 
many different formations being found within an hour's walk 
of where we camped. At the junction of the plains and the 
mountains the formations which out on the plains lie on top 
of each other, are turned up on edge and exposed to sight. 

It is a paradise too for the botanist, especially in June. 
In the dells and on the grassy slopes are found many rare 
and beautiful flowers, some of them in such profusion that the 
ground is covered with masses of brilliant color, acres and 
acres of bouquets. 

It is a paradise too for the children, and that was why we 
went there. AVe pitched our tent in a grove of young pines 
near some great red rocks Avhose summits none of us could 
reach. In front was a grassy slope, or flowerbed, that led 
down an eighth of a mile to a farm house, where we could 
get eggs, milk and vegetables. Our wall tent, twelve by 
sixteen feet, was given up, half of it to beds and most of the 

[43] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

other half to trunks and satchels. The stove and table were 
out under the trees. 

And there for about three weeks did we 

''Eat and drink and sleep — and then ^ 
Eat and drink and sleep again." 

We made a business of resting and we worked hard at it. 
There were no calls to make or return. Never' did children 
have a more glorious time in camping. They climbed trees ; 
they climbed and ran over the great rocks like squirrels, hal- 
lowing proudly from the tops of rounded domes and dan- 
gerous pinnacles; they took up claims and improved them; 
they built log cabins and when night came would set fire to 
them, playing that the Indians did it; they made wondrous 
mud pies out of the red soil ; they went fi-shing on the beaver 
dams and bathed in the clear streams ; they went on 
marauding expeditions after pine knots ; they would stuff 
themselves with choke cherries by day, fill up with milk at 
night, and then sleep like logs. 

One day we all went two or three miles after raspberries. 
We went up a wild canon, looked down into wild chasms, sa^'v 
beautiful waterfalls, played with the crystal water, picked 
and ate the luscious berries, and afterwards ate our dinner 
in a deserted mill. Not until afterwards did we hear about 
the rattlesnakes in that canon and under that old mill. I 
never saw any in the mountains and but one on the plains. 
Like the pins that save the lives of people who do not swallow 
them, so the rattlesnakes make the mountain campers and 
climbers happy by keeping out of the mountains. 

One day we went into another valley after wild, or 
Oregon, grapes. Not satisfied with filling pails and stomachs 

[44] 



CAMPING IN THE MOUNTAINS 

the children painted their faces with the red juice until they 
looked like wild Ute Indians. 

But the best fun was in exploring the chain of red rocks 
that extended past our tent for about a mile. The rocks were 
of a bright red color that produced fine effects among the dark 
evergreens. The highest were nearly two hundred feet high. 
What made them so delightful to the children was the oppor- 
tunity given for exploring and for the exercise of the imagina- 
tion. The elements had worn them into all sorts of fantastic 
figures which could be easily likened to men and animals, 
and made in them all sorts of nooks and crannies, open rooms 
and caves, natural arches, pools filled with water, deep wells, 
and inaccessible dungeons. An eagles nest half way up one 
high cliff was an object of much interest. In one great cleft 
of the rock the children had their Sundayschool. The eleven- 
year-old girl taught the class, and taught it very effectively 
evidently, for at its close one of the boys came to his mother 
and begged her with tears to forgive him all the naughty 
things he had ever done. One very high rock covering about 
an acre was full of arched ways, grottoes and dungeons, while 
on the top were rounded domes and sightly pinnacles, some of 
which we could not reach. We called it Giant's Castle. One of 
those piles of bright red rock would be a prize for many an 
eastern resort. But Pleasant Park with all its beauties is 
only one of a thousand beautiful camping spots in Colorado. 
Although so near to Denver I found many people there who 
had not seen it or even heard of it. Said my little girl after 
taking a good look at our camping place : ' ' Papa, I congratu- 
late you on bringing us to such a charming spot. ' ' 

A community camp. The next year, 1887, the Colorado 
Chautauqua was opened and held its first session at Glen Park, 
about eight miles from Pleasant Park, near Palmer Lake, at 

[45] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

the summit of the Divide between Denver and Colorado 
Springs. It is a beautiful, healthy, sightly spot, fifty miles 
south of Denver, and 2000 feet higher. We pitched our tent 
there in 1887, again in 1888, and again in 1889. The first 
time we went our tent was barely up and the stakes liot yet 
tightened when a terrific storm of thunder and lightning, of 
wind and hail, burst upon us. I held up the rear pole with 
might and main. The good old ''grandmother," as we called 
her, held up the other pole and intensely enjoyed the storm. 
The children cowered under the bedding and held their hands 
over their ears. I felt like doing the same but I was afraid 
if I did that the whole tent would collapse. 

What charming trips we had over the rocks, up the 
mountains and through the valleys and, canons, hunting for 
berries, crystals, flowers, fish, caverns and scenery ! The fol- 
lowing lines express but a little part of the children's 
enjoyment : 

Three Pretty Girls 

Three pretty girls as fresh as pearls. 

With lips as red as cherries. 
Did roam the dell and search it well 

To find the red raspberries. 

In leafy bowers they plucked the flowers 

That grew so thick and fair ; 
With daisies white and roses bright 

They decked their golden hair. 

From mountain side o'er stretches wide 

They gazed with eager eye ; 
The song of bird they gladly heard 

And wished that they could fly. 

[46] 




# '. -J- 




CAMPING IN THE MOUNTAINS 

Their hearts you see were full of glee, 

And full of pleasant weather; 
Their feet were light and eyes were bright 

As they climbed the hills together. 

Of the many trips that we took to places of interest I 
can describe only one. My companion that day was a long 
legged minister who proved to be the first man I had found 
who could outwalk me in the mountains. We were up at five 
and off at six. Our first mile was on a good trail, up a steep 
valley, beside a dashing mountain brook. We walked it in 
fifteen minutes, but we did not walk any other mile in fifteen 
minutes that day. The trail soon became very dim and then 
disappeared. Then the real work began. When one is follow- 
ing a plain trail, the weariness of mountain climbing is con- 
fined to the body. But when one has to pick out his own path 
and be constantly considering where he shall take the next 
step, the mind becomes weary as well as the body. 

Passing some beaver dams we entered a beautiful moun- 
tain valley that seemed an ideal place for a summer camp. 
Through it flowed two or three streams of clear water and 
around it rose the great hills. From the west there opened 
into it a wild rugged gorge a mile or more in length, lined with 
a dense growth of dark evergreens among and above which 
rose gigantic boulders of white granite. It was a beautiful 
gorge, wild and grand and very inviting to the lover of scenery 
and solitude, but also an ideal place for bears, whose tracks 
we saw in the vicinity. We took the ridge tO' the left as easier 
and safer. A hard climb brought us to the top where we got 
into a perfect jumble of gigantic, angular and rectangular 
boulders, thrown together in the utmost confusion. We tried 
to get under them and we threaded our way through gloomy 

[47] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

labyrinths and cavernous rooms that were very suggestive of 
bears, and then we threaded our way back again. Then we 
tried to climb over them but frowning precipices turned us 
back. Reluctantly we retraced our steps and went down tne 
hill and around the huge rocks and then up again. 

We were now well up where we could look out over the 
lower foothills and out upon the plains. We became very 
thirsty. There was water far down in the valley but we could 
not spend the strength to go after it. Just as our thirst was 
extreme we came upon a patch of delicious wild raspberries. 
We stripped the bushes and slacked our thirst. We found 
other kinds of wild fruit that day. 

Another long climb and then we let ourselves down into 
a very deep valley and struck the head of the gorge before 
mentioned. The cool water was flowing from under a great 
rock. It was nowhere near noon, but we felt as though it 
were, so we went by our stomachs rather than our watches 
and ate our dinner. The thick grass was pressed down where 
we sat, indicating that some wild animal had been sleeping 
there the night before. We kept a sharp lookout for possible 
bears or "mountain lions." One of us carried a dull hatchet 
and the other a small mineral pick. Our plan of defense was 
that if a bear or lion got one of us down, the other would chop 
or hammer away at him until he turned on the one that was 
not down, and then the other was to jump up and chop or 
hammer, as the case might be. But fortunately we had no 
occasion to put into execution our brilliant plan of defense. 

The sensitive plates of our minds were exposed and we 
recorded there many impressions of the wild scenery around 
us, especially of the great rocks that were piled like Mt. Ossa 
on Mt. Pelion, rising above the dark green trees like great 

[48] 



CAMPING IN THE MOUNTAINS 

bastions and domes and pyramids and castles. It would be a 
delightful spot for a photographer. 

Our plan for the day's trip was to follow up the North 
Monument creek for several miles, then cross over the divide 
and strike some branch of the stream that flows north into 
Pleasant Park and then return to camp by the road on the 
plains. 

After a long" climb we crossed a divide from the summit 
of which we surveyed the regions and concluded that the deep 
valle}^ below us was the one that would bring us into Pleasant 
Park. 

We had become very thirsty again, so we went to the 
bottom of the steep valley and found water, striking the. 
stream at the only place for a long distance where the big 
rocks would allow us to get at the water. But why was that 
water flowing to the right? Our way now was exceedingly 
difficult. Every few steps we had to stop and consider 
which way to go next. So steep were the sides of the valley 
that we had to keep near the bottom, where it was filled with 
huge rocks. Sometimes a chasm would yawn before us and 
looking down fifty feet or more we would see, or perhaps only 
hear, the stream making its way with difficulty under the 
rocks, as we were making our way with difficulty over them. 

Then we came into a more open space where we struck a 
bear's fresh trail and followed it through a dense under- 
growth of bushes and high weeds. At every moment we ex- 
pected to meet Bruin face to face. Each of us became very 
polite and was very willing to step aside and let the other one 
take the lead. Thus we went for a long way until we came to 
a point where it would soon be decided whether the stream we 
were following belonged to the Arkansas or the Platte system 
of drainage. If down the valley a little ways the stream 

[49] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

turned to the right it would bring us right back into the same 
valley that we were in in the early morning. We watched 
with something of the same interest that Stanley had in Africa 
when the bend in the stream was to decide whether it was the 
Congo that he was following, or some other river. 

Our stream turned to the right, and after another rough 
climb over, under and around some more great rocks, we 
descended a steep hill and struck our early morning trail. 
Rough and stony as it was it seemed very restful to our sore 
feet and weary brains. We had missed the other stream by 
several miles and several high ridges. 

A farmer was once greatly pestered by a hog that some- 
how kept getting into his field. He discovered that it came 
through a crooked hollow log that lay under the fence. "I'll 
fix you, ' ' he said, and he placed the log so the hog would enter 
and come out on the same side of the fence. When he tried it 
again and came out on the same side he went in he was 
greatly perplexed. He tried it twice more and then was 
disgusted and went off grunting. When I told this story to 
my companion he saw the point at once. 

We did not answer all the questions asked us 
in camp that night, but we talked long and enthusiastically 
of the wild fruit we had eaten, the wild scenery we had seen, 
and the wild beasts we had escaped, in that wild walk of 
fifteen miles, more or less, off the trail. 

At a later date Rev. Charles Harrison, my wife and 
myself took a walk up the same canon we followed on 
the preceding trip. About a mile from camp we ran suddenly 
upon a bear in the trail. "There is a bear," said my wife, 
who was the first to see him. We were unarmed but the bear 
thought there were too many of us and made a rush for the 
steep mountain side. Mr. H. and myself rushed after him 

[50] 



CAMPING IN THE MOUNTAINS 

with all our might, but the bear was a better mountain climber 
than we were and he was soon beyond our reach and sight. If 
he had rushed in the opposite direction I presume we should 
have done so too. 



[51] 



CHAPTER V 
CLIMBING HIGH MOUNTAINS 

AT the outset let me disclaim being a professional moun- 
tain climber. I have read many of their books, and the 
stories of how they have scaled dizzy precipices and lofty 
peaks, in Wales or Scotland for practice, and then in the 
Alps or Appenines, the Andes or Himalayas, of being roped 
together, of cutting holes in the ice for their feet, of cross- 
ing yawning crevasses, of' daring death, and of death itself. 
On my study wall hangs a large picture of the Matterhorn, 
that frowning and treacherous peak that cruelly dashed to 
their awful death four of the seven men who, under the 
leadership of Whymper, first scaled its sharp and icy heights. 
Such conquests of hitherto untrodden summits are very 
thrilling, and I suppose they are legitimate sport for some, 
but none of that for me. So I have said to my friends who 
worried about my mountain climbing. My readers may ex- 
pect no stories of hairbreadth escapes, except what loaay 
possibl}^ appear such in one or two cases. I tell only of such 
climbing as people of ordinary health and strength can in- 
dulge in, such as large numbers have indulged in, and who 
therefore will read with more interest what I write. 

On the other hand. Pike's Peak or Mount Washington 
b}' cog-road or auto is too easy for some of us. Yet those 
easy methods enable another large number of people to get 
the sublime mountain-top views and experiences which with- 

[52] 





I.^' 






CLIMBING HIGH MOUNTAINS 

out them they could never get. My stories are all of moun- 
tain ascents on foot, which is really the most satisfactory way 
of climbing mountains. 

People have a sort of natural instinct to climb to the 
top of high hills and mountains. Some do it to enjoy the 
fine views; others do it to be able to say that they have 
done it and to boast of it; others do it because it is the 
fashion. "0 yes," they say, "I have made the ascent and 
it was just lovely." Others say: "Yes, and it was just hor- 
rid." Others perhaps say: "I wouldn't have missed it for 
fifty dollars and I wouldn't do it again for fifty." I sup- 
pose most of us do it for two reasons, to see what can be 
seen, and then to say what can be said about it, by voice or 
by pen. 

If a person enjoys natural scenery there is great delight, 
a joy that words cannot express, in getting to the top of a 
high mountain and looking, as Moses did from Pisgah, north 
and south and east and west, in looking almost straight down 
into awful chasms, out and all around over a vast realm of 
mountains and plains, and straight up into the crystalline 
depths- of heaven. 

To my dying day I shall never forget the feelings of 
joy, the unspeakable emotions of grandeur and awe, of 
reverence and worship, which I have experienced on the sum- 
mits of Pike's Peak, Mount Lincoln, Gray's Peak, Bald 
Mountain, Cameron's Cone and others. 

It is hard work to climb a high mountain, especially if 
there is no trail. You toil wearily upward for hours, per- 
haps all day long. The sun is hot, the way is rough ; there 
are streams to cross and gloomy forests to pass through ; 
sometimes there are precipices to scale ; tracks of wild beasts 
are seen and sometimes the wild beasts themselves ; you 

[53] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

become very thirsty, and either very hungry or so nauseated 
that you cannot bear the thought of food. Perhaps you sink 
into snow at every step ; some of your companions turn back 
or faint by the way. But you are determined to conquer ; 
''Excelsior" is your motto; you overcome all difficulties and 
finally with a shout of joy, or a faint grunt of victor}^ you 
stand on the very summit, far above the clouds, two or three 
miles above sea-level, and look down on a world beneath 
you. It surely is worth while. 

Cameron's Cone. When I climbed Cameron's Cone 
(11,560 feet, or 5500 above the plains) from Crystal Park 
I stood on the summit and looked down over the way by 
which I had come. I looked eastward over the great plains 
and northward and southward over the foothills. I was 
above everything in sight in those directions. I had a feel- 
ing of complacency; I began to feel proud and inwardly to 
pat myself on the back because I had climbed so high. Then 
I turned around and looked westward, and across a forested 
valley rose the great white dome of Pike's Peak, a half mile 
higher yet into the sky, as if to mock my boasting and dare 
me to scale its summit. And I said: "I have not yet at- 
tained ; I must press toward another prize ; I must yield to 
Nature's upward calling," and I made the poet's words my 
own : 

''Afar 
The summits are. 
In the roseate hues of morning 
The western skies adorning. 
We will climb those purple heights 
Crowned with glories and delights, 
Naught retards us, 

[54] 



CLIMBING HIGH MOUNTAINS 

Heaven guards us. 

Nature smiling 

Is beguiling. 

Aspiration plumes her wings 

And the spirit in us sings." 

Mount Lincoln is in the northwestern corner of South 
Park and is the most famous peak in the Park Range. In 
July, 1878, Prof. A. A. Wright and Prof. Judson Smith, of 
Oberlin, with whom I went on a camping trip to Twin Lakes, 
desired to climb a high mountain, one in the 14,000-foot 
class. AVe chose Mount Lincoln. We crossed the range at 
an altitude of 12,000 feet, camped over Sunday at Fairplay, 
one of Colorado's earliest mining camps, and on Monday 
drove nine miles to Hillsdale, a deserted mining town, where 
we left our horses. We were then at 10,000 feet and with 
a strong team we could have driven within a few hundred 
feet of the summit. There were rich silver mines at 14,000 
feet. The distance was about three miles with an ascent of 
4000 feet. Near timber line we passed through a good-sized 
village of log cabins, Quartzville, another deserted mining 
camp. At 12,000 feet we looked up about 2000 feet and saw 
near the summit of Mount Bross the celebrated Moose mine. 
The miners looked like dwarfs. We lunched by an ice-cold 
stream just where it plunged into an ice cavern and flowed 
under a great stretch of snow. At 14,000 feet we were kindly 
shown by the superintendent through the Russia mine. Its 
walls were covered with millions of large frost crystals, some 
of them nearly an inch long. They reflected the light of our 
torches like myriads of diamonds. The crystals form during 
the rainy season and disappear during the dry fall and win- 
ter. The ground at that altitude is frozen the year round 

[55] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

and the mines are not troubled with water except near their 
entrance. 

A sharp climb of several hundred feet more, over snow, 
ice and broken rocks, brought us to the summit. How can I 
give an adequate idea of what we saw from the summit? 
Southeast, and a mile below us, lay South Park, some forty 
miles long by twenty-five wide, through which we could see 
the Platte and the Little Platte Rivers leisurely meandering. 
East of the Park was Puma Range, and forty miles further 
Pike's Peak loomed upward majestically. Twenty-five miles 
northeast was Gray's Peak. Seventy miles north Long's 
Peak shone dimly but beautifully through the cloud-mist. 
To the northwest was the far-famed Mount of the Holy 
Cross, hid from us by a thunder storm. Park Range was 
west and south, with Leadville just over the mountain crest. 
Further west and across the Arkansas Valley rose the snow- 
capped peaks of the Continental Divide, Mounts Massive, 
Grizzly, Plata, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Elbert, Antero, 
Shavano, and Ouray, all 14,000 feet or more in height. No- 
where else in our country can one see at a glance such a 
range of mountains of that height. Far beyond were the 
Elk Mountains. To the southwest we could see into the San 
Juan region. To the south were the bright serrated peaks 
of the Sangre-de-Christo Range, and 150 miles southeast 
were the Spanish Peaks. 

In every direction but one we were closely surrounded 
by a great sea of mountain peaks, capped here and there 
by immense snow fields, and some of them covered with fresh 
snow. In a dozen different directions we could see thunder 
storms sweeping across South Park or beating against the 
sides of the ranges. We could see lightning flashes far be- 
low us and hear the thunder echo and re-echo among the 

[56] 



CLIMBING HIGH MOUNTAINS 

crags. A thousand feet below us lay a gem of a lake. The 
stream that ran from it into deeper gorges seemed to us like 
a silver thread, but we could hear the noise of its roaring. 
Close by us in those lakes and gorges were the sources of 
the Platte and Arkansas Rivers, which reach the Atlantic 
through widely separated courses, and also of the Blue, 
which flows to the Pacific. 

After sufficiently admiring the view, the theological pro- 
fessor amused himself by rolling big stones down a steep 
slope of one or two thousand feet. When a big rock made 
an unusually good run over the snow fields and rock slides 
his exclamations of delight were not such, we thought, as 
he was accustomed to use in his class room. They were not 
so classical. 

We were on Mount Lincoln July twenty-second. The 
eastern states were broiling in a hot wave and hundreds 
were d3dng daily from sunstrokes in the great cities, but 
we found overcoats necessary. We gathered a few fagots 
and built a fire to keep warm. A snowstorm passed over 
us ; our hands and feet became so cold that we cut short our 
stay and reluctantly tore ourselves away from the magnifi- 
cent mountain which through all time will stand as a monu- 
ment to the immortal Lincoln. 

Gray^S' Peak is fifty miles west of Denver but not in 
sight from the city, as it is hid by other mountains. In 
1884 Graymont was the terminus of the railroad up Clear 
Creek Canon. Now a railroad runs to the top of Mount 
McClellan, near the summit of Gray's Peak, over a remark- 
able zigzag line. Rev. W. D. Westervelt and myself reached 
Graymont in the evening. A huge bonfire of pine stumps 
was burning in the front yard of the new and unpainted 
hotel. On the top of a distant mountain a forest fire was 

[57] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

burning. The valley was filled with the roar of mountain 
torrents. A mile above us, seemingly among the stars, lay 
the mountain summits, now, in mid-summer, only partly clad 
with snowy robes. 

"We slept, or tried to sleep, until three A.M. "Let us 
dress and start for the Peak," said my friend. "Agreed," 
said I. In fifteen minutes we stole quietly out of the hotel 
and were on our way. We lost the trail in the dark and 
wasted a precious half hour in finding it. Venus shone like 
a camp fire from the summit of a distant peak. We were in 
the shades of a deep valley, but far up on the mountain 
tops we saw the reflection of dawn, and soon the rosy-, 
fingered rays of the rising sun turned the gray rock, the 
green forest and the white snow-fields, all to a rosy red. 

Close to a foaming torrent of ice-water we built a little 
fire, made some tea, and ate our breakfast. Just across the 
stream was a tunnel into which Brick Pomeroy, a noted char- 
acter of that day, poured vast sums of money collected from 
the public. He hoped to strike rich veins, before getting 
through the mountain, but he never did. Close to the tun- 
nel's mouth a clean swath had been cut through the forest, 
the work of an avalanche the winter before. 

Further on we came into a vast amphitheater. The 
jagged wall to the east seemed almost perpendicular and 
thousands of feet high. Far up on its sides were miners' 
cabins and mine houses. What will not men do for gold? 
And where will they not live and work? But that mountain 
had another side, the eastern, which was smooth and grassy 
with a gentle slope. Danger and gold on the western side, 
ease and poverty on the eastern ! 

To the west Mount Kelso showed us its smooth and 
grassy side, green as could be. On its summit was a vast 

[58] 



CLIMBING HIGH MOUNTAINS 

field of whitest snow, and above it a sky of darkest blue. 
All the colors were superlative and they were very beautiful. 

We walked on fresh ice that formed the night before, 
August fifth. A cloud passed over us and dropped first rain, 
then hail, then snow. By zigzag courses we kept rising until 
at last, after our six-mile climb, we stepped out on the nar- 
row summit, 14,341 feet above the sea, the fifth highest peak 
in Colorado, of fortA^-two or more peaks in that state that 
are 14,000' or more feet in height. I am not usually very 
demonstrative, but as I stepped upon that summit and gave 
a quick glance around I exclaimed: "Glory! Hallelujah!" 
and then I said: "Before the mountains were brought forth, 
or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from 
everlasting to everlasting thou art God." Was a sublimer 
sentence ever written? 

In every direction we saw gray rocks, green slopes, dark 
forests, vast fields of snow, steep precipices, dark valleys, 
shining streams, peak after peak, range after range, a great 
limitless sea of storm-tossed, snow-capped mountains, with 
here and there some minute lines and dots made by the insect 
man. Our eyes ranged over a circle whose circumference 
was four or five hundred miles. On every side and as far 
as we could see Avere mountains, except to the northeast 
where we saw a little section of the great plains. 

All the mountains were surpassingly beautiful, and all 
together they were overwhelmingly grand, but we eagerly 
looked for one whose fame is world wide. It was not Long's 
Peak, forty-five miles away, standing guard over the beauties 
of Estes Park. It was not Pike's Peak, sentinel of the plains, 
seventy miles away. It was not the peak that bears the name 
of the martyred Lincoln, but the one on whose side is stamped 
ill gigantic proportions the symbol of our holy faith, the 

[59] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

Mount of the Holy Cross. There it stood, forty miles west 
of us, 13,978 feet high, sharply defined against the horizon, 
with a cross, formed by two immense transverse gulches tilled 
with snow, covering the upper third of what we could see 
of the mountain, and it seemed to say: ''This is God's 
country. These mountains with all their treasures belong 
to the Kingdom of our Lord; worship him." 

We remained on the summit nearly an hour. Never did 
we see more in that time. As our custom was in such places, 
we knelt in prayer. We were nearer the skies than we had 
ever been before, while God and heaven seemed very near 
to us. As we prayed, the mountains were transfigured. Their 
countenance, their aspect, was altered; their raiment glis- 
tened and shone under the glory of the sun which just then 
burst upon them from behind a cloud. It was good to be 
there, but we could not stay there always. 

Now for the descent ! The party on horseback had fif- 
teen minutes the start of us, but their course was so zigzag 
that by going straight down over the rocks we soon passed 
them. Then we came to a great bank of snow that stretched 
a long distance down the mountain side. We started great 
stones and enjoyed in boyish fashion the fun of seeing them 
bound and leap down, down until we could scarcely see them. 

''Catch it quick!" cried my friend, but before I could 
see what he wanted me to catch, his knapsack v/ith our lunch 
inside, bounded past and down the mountain until we saw it 
only as a black speck far below us. Then one of us suggested 
that we slide down ourselves and thus save the tedious climb 
down over the rocks. We both agreed, but we thought it 
best to be cautious. The slope was not very steep, perhaps 
about thirty degrees, but it was. long and there was ice 
under the thin surface of snow, something we had not 

[60] 



CLIMBING HIGH MOUNTAINS 

counted on. I sat for a moment on the edge of the snow. 
Before I had given my consent my feet started and in spite 
of all my remonstrances my legs and the rest of my body 
decided to go along with them, and so I went ; I had to go. 
I could not stop ; my speed was increasing ; it was an exciting 
moment; I knew not when, or where, or how, I should stop, 
probably in a minute or so, at the foot of Gray's Peak, 
badly bruised if not stunned or killed. I had lost my body 
but I had not entirely lost its summit, my head, while the 
ice and snow which I was plowing up helped me to keep 
cool. What did I do? I simply rolled over and dug toes 
and fingers into the snow and soft ice, clutched desperately 
at a projecting stone and came to a halt. I arrested myself 
in my downward career and lost no time in getting off that 
treacherous drift. I had had enough of it. 

I did not know what the thoughts and feelings of my 
friend were as he watched my struggles, but I quickly had 
a chance to guess. Just as I got off the drift he slipped on 
the treacherous ice and darted past me, going faster and 
faster every second and making desperate efforts to stop 
himself. I could give him no help. I thought surely he was 
in for the long slide and that I would have to watch him, as 
I did the rocks and knapsack, bounding down the mountain, 
and that I would be left a widow and orphan for the rest 
of the trip. He was evidently bound to find that lunch 
before I did and either dine on it or die beside it. 

But he did not lose his head any more than I did. It 
was still in good working order. He struck a rock and 
then an idea struck him. He simply rolled over and over a 
few times sideways and landed on the stones beside the 
drift. If I had asked him just then who he was, his most 

[6i] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

appropriate answer would have been a quotation from an 
old poem, • — 

'' 'Tis Iser (I, sir) rolling rapidly." 

We held a council of war and reached the unanimous 
conclusion that it was easier to climb down over the rocks,, 
at least until we reached a point where we could slide safeh\ 
We recovered the lost lunch and covered it, reached Gray- 
mont in time for the noon train and that night we slept and 
slept soundly in our own beds in Denver. That was the only 
snow-slide I ever saw in the mountains. 

Pike's Peak. In the fall of 1806 Lieut. Zebulon Pike with 
a small body of men was exploring the interior of Louisiana, 
a vast territory stretching from the Gulf of Mexico far to 
the north and west, which tJie United States had just pur- 
chased from France, or from Napoleon. He was following 
up the Arkansas River towards its source. On November 
fifteenth he saw in the northwest what appeared like a 
small blue cloud. He looked through his spy glass and was 
convinced that it was a mountain. In half an hour his party 
reached a hill-top where the mountains were plainly seen, 
and the men gave three cheers for what they called the 
Mexican Mountains. Pike saj^s in his journal that their sides 
were 'Svhite as if covered with snow, or a white stone." 

He marched twenty-four miles that day, eleven and one- 
half miles the next day, and on the third day he thought 
they would reach the mountains, but found at night no 
visible difference in their appearance, although the.y had 
marched twenty-three and one-half miles further. The 
fourth and fifth days they plodded on. The sixth day they 
marched eighteen miles, the seventh day twenty-one miles, 
and still those mountains tantalizingiy receded before them. 

[62] 



CLIMBING HIGH MOUNTAINS 

Seventeen miles more on the eighth day and they had not 
reached them. On the ninth day they marched nineteen 
miles further to a point about where the city of Pueblo now 
is. Pike put up a breast-work, left part of his men, then 
turned north up the Fountain Creek in order to reach and 
climb the Blue Mountain, as he called it, from whose sum- 
mit he hoped to survey the whole region. 

He started at one P. M. and marched twelve miles. On 
the eleventh day he started early, fully expecting to reach 
and ascend the mountain, but twenty-two and one-half miles 
simply brought him near to its base. On the twelfth day 
he began the ascent, probably, of Cheyenne Mountain, leav- 
ing his blankets and provisions in camp, as he expected to 
be back that night. After climbing all day they slept in a 
cave without blankets, food or water. It was November 
twenty-sixth and it was snowing at the foot of the mountain. 
The next morning, hungry, thirsty and sore, he looked out 
on "the unbounded prairie, overhung with clouds, appear- 
ing like the ocean in a storm, wave piled on wave and foam- 
ing, whilst the sky overhead was perfectly clear." "The 
sublimity of the prospect," he says, "amply compensated 
for the toil." And thus many have thought since that day. 
In an hour he reached the summit of that chain, probably 
Cheyenne .or Monte Rosa, where he found the snow several 
feet deep and the thermometer four below zero. The "Grand 
Peak, ' ' that is. Pike 's Peak, now seemed sixteen miles away. 
It would have taken the whole day to reach its base, and 
he believed that no human being could have ascended to its 
summit. It is true now that no equally high mountain has 
been ascended by so many people as has that mountain. A 
million people, more or less, have been on its summit. 

Pike's soldiers had only light overalls on, no stockings, 

[63] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

and nothing to eat, so they turned back. On reaching camp 
they found their provisions destroyed ; it was snowing ; they 
crawled under a big rock and broke their forty-eight-hour 
fast by dividing among the four one partridge and two ribs 
of deer. Thus ended the first known attempt to ascend the 
mountain which, twenty-five years later, began to be called 
Pike's Peak, after the brave soldier who in 1813 fell fighting 
his country's battles. In 1819 Major Long, with a well- 
equipped party, in summer time, reached the summit, the 
first one to reach it so far as is known. 

Pike's Peak is 14,109 feet high, about 8000 feet above 
Manitou at its base. There are several higher peaks in 
Colorado, but none that are more than about 300 feet higher. 
Tens of thousands of people ascend it each year, on foot, 
horseback, by auto and by the cog-road, most of them going 
and returning the same day. Some good pedestrians do that, 
but most of those who go on foot take two days for it. 

We three ministers were quite good walkers, but want- 
ing to enjoy the trip, we walked up one day and back the 
next. We left Manitou at six A. M., June twenty-fifth, 1878. 
The distance was about nine miles. The new trail, the third 
one that had been made, led up Engleman's Canon. A few 
days before Rev. C. C. Salter and myself had made a pre- 
liminary trip for a few miles up that trail. I found a parish- 
ioner taking views of new and as yet unnamed waterfalls 
on Ruxton Creek. He gave us the privilege of naming some 
of the finest objects of interest. The names we gave to two, 
Rosemma Falls and Little Minnehaha Palls, adhere to them 
yet, though from the last one the word Little has been 
dropped. The people of Colorado do not care to have any- 
thing called little in that state. 

[64] 



CLIMBING HIGH MOUNTAINS 

We gave the name because that waterfall so much re- 
sembled the larger Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis. Ros- 
emma combined the first names of myself and my wife. 

Take the following items and put them together in all 
sorts of combinations and one can get a general idea of the 
valley that we followed for a few miles : backward glimpses 
out over the great plains, occasional glimpses of the snowy 
peak in front; great steep hills to the right and left; pine 
forests, grassy slopes, and beds of wild flowers ; immense 
boulders of whitish granite rising above the dark green 
trees, others as large as houses lying athwart our path or 
bridging the stream ; cool retreats, out of which come springs 
or streams of cold water ; Ruxton Creek, clear as crystal, 
tumbling for miles down the mountain valley ; innumerable 
falls, cascades and rapids, some of them seen through long 
vistas of green foliage and waving like tremulous drifts of 
snow, some not seen but heard as they rush and roar under 
the immense boulders that cover and conceal the streams for 
a long distance ; side streams and valleys of scarcely less 
beauty that tempt one to turn to the right or left; the most 
symmetrical and graceful conifers, more beautiful when one 
is looking down upon their tops ; a great variety of brook 
shrubbery, whose foliage grows less the higher we ascend; 
the winding and ever ascending trail ; the tired but happy 
climbers ; and over all, as seen from the depths of the valley, 
the bluest of blue skies. 

At eleven o'clock we reached the Lake House, a hos- 
pitable log cabin on the banks of Lake Morraine, where with 
the keenest of keen appetites we ate the squarest of square 
meals and rested over two hours. Then came the hardest 
part of our climb. It was only about three miles, but it took 
us almost five hours. We passed timber line at about 12,000 

[65] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

feet. The trail was very steep and in places a path had 
been cut through deep snowdrifts. Around on the south- 
west side of the mountain we found plenty of green grass 
and myriads of tiny Alpine flowers. 

The top of the Peak was still covered with very deep 
snow. It thawed during the day and froze at night. The 
last mile of the ascent was like climbing up a very soft snow- 
drift. Often we sank in two or three feet. It was hard 
work and we became very tired. As we reached each emi- 
nence we thought was the summit, the real summit appeared 
still further on and up. Several times we were thus de- 
ceived. Every few rods we sat down on the snow to rest. 
When we rose to go on, our knees were so weak they could 
hardly support us. We soon learned the best way of rest- 
ing when climbing, was to stand still on one's feet. We 
nibbled at the remnants of our lunch and foolishly drank 
often of the snow water, but we only grew weaker. Mr. 
Salter came very near giving out entirely. 

When it was almost dark I saw a low, massive stone 
house a few rods ahead. Never was sight of house more 
welcome. I shouted back to the others and in a few minutes 
we were inside of the highest house in America, the United 
States signal service station. We were just in time to escape 
the snow and hail storm that swept across the summit. While 
going up we had passed through one thunder storm. When 
we were sitting under a small bushy pine to escape the rain 
there came a blinding flash of lightning and at once an 
awful crash of thunder. Thunder storms are frequent there 
in summer. One friend was struck from his horse while 
climbing the Peak. Another man told me that when build- 
ing the telegraph line to the summit the lightning used to 
knock him down every once in a while ! Electrical storms 

[66] 



CLIMBING HIGH MOUNTAINS 

occur when the air is so full of electricity that the hair 
sticks out straight from one's head. Soon after we entered 
the room a thunder storm began to rage a mile or more 
down the mountain. The telegraph wires brought the light- 
ning flashes into the room, and just before each clap of thun- 
der there was a report like a pistol shot at the telegraphic 
instrument. There were about ten such in all. I kept as 
near the other end of the room as I could. 

Of course we remained all night. The sergeant and Mr, 
Kinzer slept on the floor. Mr. Salter and myself took the 
so-called bed. The confused and very untidy appearance 
of the room was explained by the fact that the tourist season 
had not opened yet. As long as he did not charge us any- 
thing we did not complain. We were too tired to sleep, 
and even if we had not been the rats would not have per- 
mitted it. They were very numerous that night, very wake- 
ful and very spry. They ran all over the bed and all through 
it. Mr. Salter was greatly annoyed by them. He thought 
he had a good chance to hit one and send it flying across 
the room, but the rat got out of the way of his fist. Un- 
fortunately, I did not. I took in my side the full force of 
his blow. I did not turn the other side to be smitten. 

The story so widely circulated at that time about Ser- 
geant O'Rourke's baby being eaten by mountain rats on 
Pike's Peak was pure fiction, in spite of the monument 
erected to the baby's memory, and over which I have seen 
tourists almost shed tears, but it might have been true 
so far as the rats were concerned. 

We were up at half-past three, for we wished to see the 
sun rise. We shivered around in the cold for an hour and 
finally saw the sun, like a globe of fire, come up far out on 
the plains. We could see the streets of Colorado Springs 

[67] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

fourteen miles away, but we could not distinguish buildings. 
Pike's Peak gives one a far better view of the plains than 
one gets from almost any other mountain, but not so good a 
view of mountains as one gets from Gray's Peak or Mount 
Lincoln. Our vicAV of mountains was obscured by clouds, but 
we had such cloud views as feY\" persons see from Pike's 
Peak, and Ave would not have exchanged what we saw for 
a cloudless view. We looked far down and out upon ten 
thousand square miles of white billowy clouds, the upper 
side of a great sea of white vapor on whose dark underside 
the people below were looking up. The clouds covered the 
plains as far as w^e could see. For a moment there was 
a break in them, that gave us another view of Colorado 
Springs. Then the clouds rolled together and hid it from 
our sight. A cloud came sailing by close to us, only a few 
rods away. As it came between us and the sun it was filled 
with prismatic colors. We looked behind us to the west and 
only a few rods away was a pyramid of prismatic colors sus- 
pended in the air. We stood on the edge of what was called 
the crater and rolled great rocks down the steep slope of 
2000 feet or more, a practice now very properly forbidden 
in the mountains. 

Then the crater filled with a dense mist which was tossed 
and torn by the wind and came noiselessly boiling and foam- 
ing up over our heads and was borne off to the west. Then 
there was a sudden rift in the cloud and as we peered from 
our chilly heights down through that narrow cleft we saw 
the trees two or three miles away and nearh^ a mile be- 
neath us bathed in the beautiful sunshine. We looked from 
white winter down upon green spring. 

As we beheld one and another of those glorious sights 
we gave utterance to all manner of exclamations of delight. 

[68] 



( i 



CLIMBING HIGH MOUNTAINS 

Oh, oh!" ^'Ah, Ah!" ''Beautiful!" ''Isn't that grand?" 
Did you ever see anything so fine ? ' ' But after awhile our 
exclamations died away and we stood there in silence, look- 
ing, looking. Our souls were so full, the poor imperfect 
language used by us down on the surface of the earth failed 
to express our feelings and emotions on those supernal 
heights. 

Soon the clouds were not only beneath us, but above us 
and all around us. We were enveloped in a dense cloud. It 
was no use to remain longer. About seven o'clock we be- 
gan the descent. At ten o 'clock we were at Lake Morraine ; 
at half -past one o'clock we were at Manitou, and at four 
o'clock we were at Colorado Springs. 

On the way down, while walking on level ground, I 
tripped on an insignificant little root and pitched headlong. 
As I lay groaning upon the ground, unable to rise, Mr. Salter 
picked up the things that flew from my pockets, among them 
my watch. "Is it going?" I managed to ask. 

"Yes," was the provoking reply, "rather faster than 
you are just now." The fall wrenched my ankle and sev- 
eral miles more of walking down hill left me scarcely able 
to step for a day or two. 

One can come down a mountain faster than he can 
climb it, but it is harder work for an equal length of time. 
My knee muscles have sometimes become so lame and sore 
in coming down that to relieve them I have for awhile 
turned and walked backward, not a very great relief, I 
must confess. 

After that first time I walked to the summit of Pike's 
Peak three times more, and also went once by the cog-road 
with my wife and other friends. Twice I had perfectly clear 

[69] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

and most glorious views, and twice I was in a snowstorm and 
clouds. 

Bald Mount ain. One other mountain climb I will mention 
briefly. While stopping at Seven Lakes in 1882 I was close 
to the summit of Bald Mountain, the second highest mountain 
in the Pike's Peak Range. I went to the summit several 
times. One morning I started very early, as I expected to 
spend the day east of the mountain. In an hour I was 
at the summit, as my start was from about 11,000 or 12,000 
feet. As I neared the top I found myself surrounded by 
dense clouds. I was in the cloud. The damp, dense mist 
was swirling all about me, almost choking me. I could see 
but a few feet in front. All was dark and gloomy. I knew 
I had reached the top of the mountain, but where was the 
glorious outlook for which I had toiled painfully upward? 
Must I spend the day in the gloomy clouds? Was there no 
bright sunshine beyond? Suddenly I saw a strange gleam 
of light in front of me, and then, quicker than I can tell it, 
the cloud had passed me; it floated off to the west, and 
there burst upon my enraptured vision such a view of moun- 
tain peaks and distant plains, of green forests and lovely 
vales, with the glorious sun shining over all, as filled my 
soul with joy and my mouth with hallelujahs, while floating 
further and further to the west, soon to be only a speck on 
on the horizon, was the cloud that had enveloped me. 

And I said to myself, from the standpoint of my own 
personal belief and the belief of many millions of people, 
like this will be the good man's death; one moment in the 
dark cloud, struggling with the swirling elements of decay- 
ing nature, and the next moment there shall dawn upon his 
freed spirit the glory of the immortal life. He shall gaze 
with enraptured eyes upon the mountains and the plains, 

[70] 



I 



CLIMBING HIGH MOUNTAINS 

upon the hills and valleys, of Paradise, while the earthly life 
of toil and trouble, with its closing cloud called death, shall 
float away forever. 



NOTE. — According to late surveys, there are forty-two mountains in 
Colorado that are more than 14,000 feet high. The ten highest are as follows: 

Massive 14 402 Torrey's 14,336 

Elbert 14 402 La Plata ; 14,332 

Blanca 14,390 Uncompaghre 14,306 

Harvard 14 375 Buckskin 14,296 

Gray's 14,341 Lincoln 14,287 

The two best-known peaks, and the ones climbed by the most people, are 
Pike's Peak, 14,109 feet, and Long's Peak, 14,255 feet. The Mount of the 
Holy Cross is well known, but not many people ascend it, or even see it. I went 
clear around it one day by rail without seeing it. Its height is 13,978 feet. 
Future surveys may possibly change the relative standing of the above mountains. 
For a long time Blanca was supposed to be the highest mountain in Colorado. 
See "The Peaks of the Rockies,'' illustrated, published by the Denver and Rio 
Grande R. R., Denver, Colo. 



[7'] 



CHAPTER YI 
MOUNTAIN AVATEEFALLS 

RUNNING and falling waters are my special delig^lit. 
Springs and lakes and tarns are interesting, chiefly I 
think becanse they duplicate by reflection the monntains and 
forests around them, but water in motion is fascinating. It 
adds wonderfully to one's enjoyment of the mountains. What 
the mountain brook is and Avhat it does I shall try to tell in the 
next chapter. In this chapter I will try to tell about some of 
my waterfalls. I own many in Colorado and elsewhere, and 
I have a host of partners in their ownership. We all desire 
to have our number increased. We pay no taxes on our 
waterfalls but we get big diAddends, not only when we go to see 
them but when we remember them, and talk about them, and 
look at their pictures, which we keep of course, as we do the 
pictures of our friends. 

What is a waterfall ? A fall of water, of course. Rain is 
a fall of water, but we will not count that. A mighty mass of 
water tumbling over a precipice is a waterfall : so is a slowly 
moving river that falls one inch in a mile, but we do not count 
the latter. A certain slight angle of descent makes a rapid, or 
rapids. A large increase of the angle makes a tumbling tor- 
rent ; a still larger increase gives us a genuine waterfall. We 
might define it as a perpendicular, or nearly perpendicular 
fall of water. If there are several such in quick succession 
we use the plural. In fact the plural is used when there is but 




ROSEMMA FALLS, ON PIKE'S PEAK TRAIL 



MOUNTAIN WATERFALLS 

one straight, unbroken and undivided fall, as Minnehaha 
Falls. Why do we generally use the plural? Perhaps be- 
cause the water part of the waterfall is constantly changing, 
making a new waterfall every few moments, new in every 
thing but the channel. 

The fascination of waterfalls is largely in their variety. 
Hardly any two are exactly alike, either in the falls them- 
selves or in their surroundings. When you have seen one 
you have not seen all. If two or three are nearly alike they 
have the interest that twins have, or triplets. 

Niagara is a majestic waterfall, king of them all, with no 
rival unless it has one in Africa. Its majesty overshadows its 
beauty. Its features are as well known to Americans as is the 
face of Washington. It is not a mountain waterfall and so 
I will pass it by with this simple statement given by Russell 
in his book on the Great Lakes. If no more moisture fell 
on the drainage area of the Great Lakes, and if their present 
supply of water could be drawn off at a uniform rate, the rate 
that it now flows over Niagara, it would take a hundred years 
for it to pass over the Niagara precipice. That statement 
does not minimize the Falls, but it shows the size of the Great 
Lakes. 

Let me describe two of my waterfalls near Pike's Peak. 
Chiefest in beauty and fame is Seven Falls, at the head of 
South Cheyenne Canon, where the clear and beautiful South 
Cheyenne Creek tumbles over a broken, uneven precipice of 
granite in seven successive falls, each different from the others, 
into a large well or small amphitheater. A stairway beside the 
falls gives one an upward exit from the well, a climb of some 
two hundred and fifty feet or more. 

Just below the topmost fall a bridge crosses the creek. 
From the bridge one can see how the water has grooved and 

[73] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

polished the hard granite. Go back a little way below the falls 
and climb to a good position where you can see all seven falls 
at once and, especially in time of high water, you will 
stand entranced as you gaze at the white tumbling waters and 
listen to their loud roaring as they hurl themselves down over 
one fall after another. For a half mile or more the stream, 
flows rapidly between beautiful canon walls and then enters 
on its long journey seaward through Cheyenne and Fountain 
Creeks, through the Arkansas and Mississippi Rivers. 

I have often taken my friends to see that glorious 
tumbling and gliding of crystal waters and they have never 
been disappointed. Probably more people see it than see any 
other famous fall in America except Niagara, and every one 
who sees it becomes an owner, even though he pays an ad- 
mission price. In the pioneer days of last century access to 
it was free, but some one took up government land and became 
the legal owner and since then has charged an admission fee 
of twenty-five cents or more. It goes against the grain of us 
old timers to pay for seeing our own falls. Colorado Springs 
lost the opportunity of ownership unless now she pays an 
enormous price. 

My other fall, mine in a very special sense, is Rosemma 
Falls, on the cog-road trail to Pike's Peak. The building of 
the cog-road partly spoiled its beauty, but when I named it in 
1878 by combining my own, and my wife's first names it was 
a small but charming tumble of foaming waters that came 
from under a great rock, flowed around and over other rocks, 
and disappeared under rocks. It is a little ways below Little 
Minnehaha Falls. Not many tourists see it or care much for 
it, and so she and I became its chief owners, and when she 
went away she left her share to me. A large photograph of 

[74] 




MINNEHAHA FALLS, ON PIKE'S PEAK TRAIL 



MOUNTAIN WATERFALLS 

it hangs on my study wall and as I lift my eyes to it while 1 
write it seems to me the fairest of all my waterfalls. 

The best and highest of all my waterfalls in Colorado is 
in the San Juan region, some four hundred miles from Pike's 
Peak. I had heard of it as the finest waterfall in Colorado and 
I wished to see whether it was or not, and if it was I surely 
must see it . So one day in 1889 I crossed a high range between 
Summit and Telluride (see chapter ten). I walked from 
four to twelve miles, according to the different reports I 
received. From the top of the range I let myself down 5000 
feet into a deep valley in which lies Telluride, 8600 feet above 
the sea. I passed many beautiful falls and cascades on the 
way. As I turned a curve, I saw across the valley what was 
surely the highest and finest fall in Colorado. I was so lame 
from walking over the range, I could scarcely walk without 
pain. But the next day I dragged myself two or three miles 
up the valley that I might get a nearer view of that water- 
fall and enjoy its beauty at close range. From a distance it 
seems to fall into the top of an evergreen forest. It does, 
almost, for the trees grow up as close to it as they dare. The 
tall trees and the dark red precipices form a fit frame for 
that white foaming torrent of water, which, as seen from a 
distance, seems to crawl slowly down through the air. One 
can watch- the detached masses, or "rockets," of water and 
count the seconds that pass as they descend, and thus roughly 
estimate the height of the fall, which they told us was 327 
feet ; more than twice as high as Niagara. 

Making my way through the woods I came to the little 
open space where the great boulders and piles of loose rock 
were covered with greenest mosses and grasses, kept constantly 
wet by the unceasing spray. With my waterproof coat on I 
crept up to within a few feet of where the water strikes the 

[75] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

ground, or the rocks. I stood there and threw my head back 
and looked straight up to where that mass of water seemed 
to fall out of the sky, and watched it as it descended in great 
flakes and masses into the basin at my feet. There is i always 
commotion in the atmosphere around that fall, as the eddying 
currents are sucked in and thrown out purified and cleansed. 

A gust of wind drove the mist all around me. I could 
look up no longer; but looking down I saw a rainbow in the 
form of a perfect and entire ellipse about ten feet long. It 
was lying horizontally upon the rocks and water and I was 
standing at one end of it. I had never before been so near the 
end of a rainbow and I esteemed it a golden privilege, though 
I found no pot of gold. 

I lay down under the pines a few rods away and opened 
a little book of promises I carry on my mountain trip. I read 
some of them and then looked up at that w^hite river falling 
out of blue skies, flecking with foam the red cliff behind it, and 
gliding away with gurgling sound among the great boulders 
below. I read more promises and then took another look. A 
blessed uplifting hour it was that I spent there communing 
with God and nature, with God through nature and with 
nature through God. The word of God glorified his works 
and his works illuminated his words. The golden texts of the 
Bible alwa3^s seem more precious when beautifully printed in 
illuminated text and surrounded by pictures of fiowers and 
other beautiful objects in nature. The monks of old labored 
not in vain when they wrought patiently for 3^ears to write 
God's word in illuminated text. But no monk's pen or 
printer's art ever gave to the promises of the Bible such 
glorious illumination as they had for me that day when I 
read them from plain type amidst those glorious surroundings. 
All the sights and sounds around me, and all the visions of 

[76] 




UPPER OF THE SEVEN FALLS, CHEYENNE CANON 



MOUNTAIN WATERFALLS 

my soul, united in one clear harmonious note : ' ' God is love ; 
praise ye the Lord." The great busy world was far away, 
remembered only as a dream. There came to my ears none 
of its discordant notes. The roaring cataract spoke gently to 
my soul and brought great peace. 

There are other fine waterfalls in that region, but I have 
no such strong claim on them as I have on Bridal Veil Falls, 
I made it my own that day. 

I saw a very beautiful waterfall on Lake Creek, above 
Twin Lakes, and some fine ones in the Elk Mountains, and 
some up the Boulder Canon and many others, big and little, 
in Colorado, but I am telling only of some upon which I 
have a special claim. 

For years there hung in my home a very large photograph 
of the lower falls of the Yellowstone. I looked at it often and 
wondered if I should ever see the original. I saw it at last, in 
1898. I made a bee line for it the first night of our camp near 
it. Of course I recognized it at once. I stood at the top on a 
platform built close to the water. I watched the great mass of 
very clear water, seventy-four feet wide and from six to ten 
feet deep, as it calmly bent in a fine smooth curve over the 
brink and fell 312 feet into the canon below. Half way down 
the water was lost in its own mist. Down on the rocks on both 
sides below, flowed a constant stream of water made by the 
falling mist and spray. I saw it again from the canon top 
some distance down stream, where my big i3hotograph of it 
was taken. 

A third of a mile above are the Upper Falls, about one 
hundred feet high, and the very fine rapids, which on a smaller 
scale are like the rapids above Niagara. 

On the south side of the great gorge which the Columbia 
River cuts through the Cascade Mountains are several fine 

[77] 



MY MOUNTAINS 



waterfalls that come tumbling down from dizzy heights close 
to the railroad. I had a fine view of those falls from a steam- 
boat that moved slowly up the Columbia River. One gets good 
near-by views from the cars, but they are not so satisfactory 
because the cars fly past so swiftly. At Multnomah Falls the 
train stops four or five minutes to allow the passengers a good 
view — all too brief — of the fall, or falls, for there are two of 
them. The upper one has a sheer fall of 600 feet. The lower 
one, a few rods nearer the track, falls fifty or seventy-five feet 
and resembles Minnehaha Falls. The two together, with their 
surroundings of lichen covered rocks, mossy crags, and of 
foliage, flowers and forests, make a charming scene where one 
can linger for hours, as I did one day. The few moments given 
by the train only kindled in me a strong desire to see the falls 
for a longer time. So a friend and myself went one day from 
Portland thirty miles and left the train at Multnomah. We 
spent several hours climbing, gazing, lounging and bathing 
in and around that fall and stream, which is perhaps the finest 
in the Northwest, and which called forth such high praise 
from John Burroughs. He called it the gem of all that region 
''and perhaps the most thrillingly beautiful bit of natural 
scenery we beheld on the whole trip." He saw it only five 
minutes "but those five minutes were of the most exquisite 
delight." 

We walked two miles up the track to visit Oneonta Gorge, 
which is what would be called a box canon in Colorado. It is 
about a half mile long, very deep and Yery narrow. Except in 
low water one has to wade to explore it. Up the Gorge a little 
way there is a very pretty waterfall. 

Probably nowhere else in America is there so fine a group 
of majestic waterfalls as in the Yosemite Valley. I saw 
enough of them in two days to call them mine, but their chief 

[78] 



ar^ ■ ■ 



MOUNTAIN WATERFALLS 

owner, while he was alive, was John Muir. Probably no one 
else ever studied them so thoroughly, or admired them so 
ardently, or described them so well, as he did. All my readers 
are urged to read what he says of them in his book on The 
Yosemite. 

I was there forty-eight hours including two nights. They 
were divinely glorious hours and days. In the three tramps 
I took with my aching limbs and sore feet I walked 
about twenty-eight miles, to Yosemite fall with its straight 
plunge of 1430 feet in the first fall, 320 in the lower fall, and 
many hundred feet of tumbling rapids and cascades in a gorge 
between the two, to Vernal Falls, 317 feet, to Nevada Falls, 
594 feet, to Illilouette Falls, 370 feet, to Bridal Veil Falls, 620 
feet, and to Sierra Point, where we could see the first four of 
the preceding list. 

What a great host of owners and lovers scattered over the 
earth, those superlatively magnificent waterfalls have! We 
can draw dividends at any time that we choose to look at our 
pictures of them, or to develop for the nth time our mental 
pictures we took on the spot. If one could spend a w^hole 
summer with them, gazing on their marvelous beauty and 
listening to their divine songs, what a summer that would 
be; one to recall for a lifetime ! If it is possible I think many 
of us will come back to them after death, dwelling there a part 
of our time as in a part of our heavenly paradise. But 1 
should want John Muir to come back with us to be our guide. 

I am glad when I think of the immense total of gladness 
which those waterfalls, and that whole glorious valley, will, 
in the centuries to come, give to the untold millions of nature 
lovers who will visit them. Surely God must have had them 
in mind when he spent long ages in carving that valley with 
the slow moving but irresistable glaciers. 

[79] 



CHAPTER VII 
THE MOUNTAIN BROOK. — A STUDY 

MANY times have I sat, stood, or strolled by the side of 
one or another of the countless mountain brooks that 
flow down the valleys of the Rocky Mountains. Through 
my eyes their beauties, and through my ears their melodies, 
have flowed into my soul and filled it vdth great joy. At 
an}^ time I can get distinct reflections of that joy by looking 
over my many pictures of mountain streams and waterfalls, 
or by recalling the images of them once formed on my brain. 

One day I sat for a long time on a flat stone on the bank 
of one of the most charming of Colorado's mountain brooks, 
and tried to analyze that mountain stream. I tried to answer 
the questions: "What is it? What are its relations to other 
things? What are its loAver and what its higher uses?" I 
sought to interpret it to myself and to others. I tried to 
translate its character, its work, its message, into language 
familiar to the dwellers on the plain. This study is the result 
of that attempt. It tells but part of the story ; no one person 
can tell the whole. What I write is such stuff as that of 
which poems are made. I am not a poet, so the most 
I can do is to write a sort of prose poem. 

Tennj^son wrote a beautiful poem on The Brook, but his 
is an English brook, one that flows among grassy hills and 
meadows. It flows 

[80] 



^ I j ^ 



CASCADE IN NORTH CHEYENNE CANON 



THE MOUNTAIN BROOK. — A STUDY 

"By twenty thorps (hamlets), a little town, 
And half a hundred bridges, ' ' 

and then 

''By Philip's farm to join the brimming river. " 

The mountain brook is a very different thing", though having 
many resemblances. Do you ask me what it is? It is a per- 
petual motion, gliding unceasingly through its rocky chan- 
nel. It is not like the stars, "unceasing and unhasting, " 
but it is unceasing and hasting. It rushes on, sixty minutes 
every hour and tAventy-four hours every day. It has been 
hurrying downward for uncounted ages and its work will 
not be done until the sun has grown cold and the Avorld has 
frozen. 

"Men may come and men may go. 
But I go on forever. ' ' 

It has an ever-changing identity, the identity being one 
of locality and of general outline and character, while the 
water and the special surface outlines are constantly chang- 
ing at any and every point. He who returns to it after the 
lapse of many years says : "It is the same old brook," unless 
indeed some industry of man has changed it to a stream of 
muddy Avater, and then he says: "It is not the same stream 
it used to be." 

It is an endless serpent, AA^hose sinuous motion through 
beaver meadows, over jagged rocks and under dead logs 
charms bird and beast and man, but in whose mouth are no 
poisonous fangs. Birds, serpents and brooks reveal to us 
the poetry of motion in nature. It turns and winds in end- 
less curves of beauty, seeming to abhor straight lines, yet 

[8i] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

ever striving to straighten its pathway, ebbing and flowing, 
swelling and shrinking, with every storm, yet never re- 
treating. 

It is a wandering Jew, whose fate is to move on and 
ever on. Not for a moment can it stop to rest. Its waters 
can claim no land as their own. They belong to all lands 
and they must visit them all in turn. 

It is a circuit rider, whose journeyings are a part of that 
vast circuit, "the river of God which is full of water." It 
hurries on from station to station, as though it were eager 
to enjoy again the oft-repeated and never-ending trans- 
formations through sea, vapor, clouds, rain, snow or hail, 
rivulet or spring, brook, river, and gulf — from land to sea, 
from sea to sky, from sky to land again. It loves to go 
abroad and it loves to revisit old haunts. It tests the merits 
of all the brookways, river channels, seas, and climates in all 
the world. 

It is a lily of the valley, blooming on through all seasons, 
ever plucked from its rocky stem, yet ever renewed. It is 
a long and lovely flower whose colors are caught from white 
clouds, blue skies, granite domes, red rocks, and dark forests. 

It is an irregular stairway and toboggan slide combined, 
adown which the baby river walks and tumbles, slides and 
jumps, a merry acrobat whose astounding performances 
and endless grimaces make the wood nymphs laugh. It 
works hard simply to tumble down hill, forever repeating 
Southey's picture of Lodore. 

It is a surface indicator, pointing to another stream, 
often much larger, that flows more slowly beneath the rocks 
and gravel, as the iceberg that floats above the water 
indicates a larger bulk of ice beneath. 

Its waters are clear as crystal, a quality which the 

[82] 



THE MOUNTAIN BROOK. — A STUDY 

streams of the lowlands, and which itself, when it reaches the 
plains, might well envy. In its smooth-snrfaced pools and 
in its gently rippling channels it seems as transparent as 
the air. Bnt when it gets excited and foams all over, then 
it has an aerated whiteness, caused by the bubbles of air 
which it is ever capturing and which are ever escaping from 
its grasp. The air and the water seem ever in a state of 
Avarfare over their respective boundaries. 

It carries a suggestion of refreshing coolness. Its waters 
are cool, coming out of cool rocks and gravel beds, or down 
from snowy heights. They cool the surrounding air; they 
cool the heated brow that is touched by them, and they cool 
the unholy desires and fiery impulses of our souls as we 
walk beside the mountain brook. 

It is a sparkling beauty, as in its dancing merriment it 
ever throws off and ever receives into its bosom myriads of 
jewels that need only hardness to rival all manner of precious 
stones. It may seem to waste much of its beauty on the 
mountain air, but the very thought that it is there delights 
the soul of those who have once been enamored of that 
beauty. 

The mountain brook sustains many and varied relations 
to other things. It is a willing slave of the law of gravi- 
tation. It obeys in its every atom ever}- behest of that law, 
by which it is pulled down its rocky road. If for a brief 
moment it leaps upward it is instantly drawn back. Only 
by dying, as it were, and becoming invisible vapor, a spirit 
of water, can it be freed from the laAv that holds it to the 
solid earth. 

It is a natural-born child, Avhose parents are the sky and 
the great mountains. Yet it resembles neither of its parents 

[83] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

and it is ever running away from its home to wander in dis- 
tant lands and see the great world. 

It is the grand-child of the ocean and the sun, ever 
hastening toward the one and ever being drawn upward 
toward the other. 

Through its parent, the sky, it is of the same kin as the 
clouds that float in the azure depths above, and whose picture 
it ever treasures within its depths. 

It is closel}^ related also to the ic}^ glacier, through its 
other parent, the earth. The glacier was its forerunner of 
old, whose slow motion and massive strength, outlined the 
vallej^ in which the brook runs. I have stood at the foot of 
one of those rivers of ice and seen the milky colored brook, 
almost a river, that flowed from its icy caverns, rejoicing 
to be free, and hastening down the mountains to the sea, 
swiftness born of slowness, songs born of silence. 

It is a remote rootlet of the great ocean, the roar of 
whose waves as they dash against each other or beat on 
endless lines of sand and rock, reproduces in deeper tones, 
the rippling songs of all the far-away brooks that feed its 
mighty depths. 

It is the parent of the plains, for the plain was made 
out of material brought from the mountains by the brook 
and deposited by it directly, or sifted doAvn from the ocean 
or inland sea to whose waters it was transferred b}^ the 
brook or the river. 

It is one of many, a unit in a vast arterial system that 
covers every upland region, every line of hills, every great 
mountain range, in all the world. Their number is legion. 
Each has its peculiar characteristics. Reject half of them 
as commonplace and tame, and what a life of unceasing de- 
light it would be for some of us if, with unwearied feet, or 

[84] 



THE MOUNTAIN BROOK. — A STUDY 

on the wings of the birds, we could wander along their 
banks, gazing at the varied scenery, catching the fish, pluck- 
ing the flowers, gathering the gems, of many lands ! 

But what does the mountain brook do? What are its 
uses? What good purposes does it serve? In its ceaseless 
activity it has many uses and serves many good purposes. 

It is a watering trough for myriad forms of vegetable 
and animal life, from the tiny plants that grow on its edge 
and whose floAvers are wet with its spray, up to the giant 
trees that are ever bathing their feet in its waters and suck- 
ing up moisture through their roots ; from the tiny insect that 
skims across its surface to the human dwellers on its banks 
who use its waters to quench their thirst, to cook their food, 
and to clean their bodies and clothes and houses. 

It is a fish preserve, especially for that peerless fish, 
the mountain trout. It brings down insects for the fish's 
food and nourishes the fish as food for man. The water ousel 
finds its food on its stony bottom and builds its nest by its 
noisiest waterfalls. The ousel's natural habitat is the mount- 
ain brook. 

It is a mountain drain. It carries off the surplus waters 
from lofty ledges, from gravel beds and from mossy morass. 
It sweeps away refuse, vegetable and animal material, in 
such diluted form that ordinarily no one but the chemist 
can detect its presence in the water. Or rather, it carries it 
away in fiood time, while at other times the soil acts as a 
great filter, cleansing the water of impurity before it reaches 
the brook's channel. 

It is a feeder of great rivers, hurrying its quotas and 
contributions on by endless express trains whose wheels 
never have hot boxes, and whose motive poAver never stops 
for coal or water. 

[85] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

It is a valley excavator, taking long time contracts for 
excavating open tunnels and mountain valleys, and emploj^- 
ing as its servants without pay, the air, gravitation, frost, 
heat, and especially the centuries. 

It is itself a mountain railroad. Its waters are an end- 
less freight train, carrjdng heavy freight, a little at a time 
and a little way at a time, the freight often resting, the 
train never resting. It carries freight one way onh^, for the 
cars are taken apart and carried back through the air as 
invisible vapor. 

It is a can-opener, for by its constant wear and tear 
it opens the rocks, and the rocks are the canned food of 
coming ages. 

It is grist-mill number one in the long series of mills 
by which the solid rock is changed to stones, to gravel, to 
soil, to wheat and corn, to flour and meal and bread. 

It is a huge cleaver with which Father Time cleaves 
asunder the mountains in one stroke, a stroke that is con- 
tinuous through the centuries. 

It is a stone-carver, a sculpturer of the mountains, whose 
chisel is water, frozen and unfrozen, whose hours of labor 
are twenty-four each day, who takes no rest or holiday ex- 
cept in times of great drouth, and the intensity of whose 
labor varies according to the supply of water and gravel. 

It is also a natural lapidist, grinding away with water 
and ice and gravel at the adamantine rocks and rolling peb- 
bles. It rough-hews some and puts the finishing touches on 
others, carrying on as many processes as there are rocks or 
pebbles in its way. It sometimes bores smooth holes in the 
rock, or spiral channels on the side of the cliff. It both 
polishes the pebbles and uses the pebbles for polishing each 
other and the rocks. 

[86] 



THE MOUNTAIN BROOK. — A STUDY 

It is a latent power, putting forth only part of its power 
when it does the preceding things. When controlled and 
utilized by the intelligence of man, it can be made to turn 
mills, run factories, tear down the gold-laden gravel beds, 
and generate electricity with which towns are lighted and 
trolley cars run. It has the power also, when turned upon 
the arid field, of making the desert blossom as the rose. 

It is the explorer's guide, the pioneer's friend, and the 
prospector's companion. It bids them toil on and hope on, 
while it "grubstakes" them with savory fish and unintoxi- 
cating drinks. 

It is a scatterer of sunshine. It takes the sunshine as 
gold, the moonshine as silver, both of them in bulk, and the 
starlight as uncut precious stones ; it divides and sub-divides 
them many times, and scatters them far and near as coin 
of a mystic realm. It throws them away in great handfuls, 
as kings throw handfuls of coin among the people who follow 
their carriages. 

It is a chime of many-toned bells whose ringing is heard 
afar in the silence of the night, or in the silence of Alpine 
heights. 

It is an orchestra of many instruments, whose concerts 
fill the woods and inspire the birds to sing, and whose echoes 
dwell long in the memory of those who have heard them. 

It is an unceasing accompaniment to the music of in- 
sects and birds and to nature's bass, the soughing of the 
winds among the pines. 

It is a shattered mirror of earth and sky, of plants and 
birds and stars, every separate object being reproduced in 
every drop and bit of surface within sight. 

It is a fairy land within whose depths are found a new 

[87] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

heaven and a new earth, of which the following lines tell 
more fully : 

The Book in the Brook 

I sat on the shady bank 
Of a gently flowing brook, 
"Within whose crystal depths 
I beheld an open book. 

On page number one I saw 
The waters blithe and free, 
Escaped from the rocky hills 
And journeying towards the sea. 

The rippling sounds above 
And the tinkling sounds below, 
The sweetest of songs did make 
In notes that were gentle and low. 

On page number two I beheld. 
Within the crystal stream, 
Spry fishes and insects rare 
And mosses of delicate green. 

On page number three, that seemed 
The last of the book's fair pages. 
Smooth pebbles I saw that bore 
The records of untold ages. 

And still looking down I saw. 
By slightly adjusting the eye. 
On pages in numbers untold. 
The beautiful azure sky. 

[88] 



THE MOUNTAIN BROOK. — A STUDY 

I saw the green branches wave 
Par under the pebbly ground, 
And yet from those crystal depths 
There came to my ears no sound. 

In fathomless depths I saw 
The gauzy white clouds go by ; 
I saw the bright sun in glory 
Shine out of that nether sky. 

All this in the brook I see 

As into its depths I look, 

And gaze on the marvelous pictures 

Of nature's most wonderful book. 

We look on the book of nature 
And many fair things we see ; 
Yet often our vision stops short 
With pages at most but three. 

If only with eyes of the soul 
Adjusted to look beyond 
The surface of earthly things, 
No fairy's omnipotent wand 

Such wonderful sights could summon 
From mystery's marvelous sphere, 
As those we should hourly see 
In things that are very near. 

Again, the mountain brook is a rainbow factory, whose 
raw material is sunshine, and whose finished products, trans- 

[89] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

portable on the ears of memory only, hang suspended over 
every tiny rapid or fall where the water is broken into 
globules. When the Avater is shattered into round drops the 
sunlight is resolved into circles of primary colors. 

It is a faithful lover of all who love nature. She chat- 
ters and sings on and on to those who walk or stand by 
her side. With many an arch look and merry laugh she tells 
them, as she has told me, many a sweet story of nature's 
mysteries. 

It is a type of youth, fresh, vigorous, alert, scarce ever 
glancing backward, eager for what lies beyond, afraid of 
nothing, 3^et oft turned aside by obstacles, drinking the cup 
of its own praise, intoxicated with the perfume of hope's 
bright morning. 

Yet with all its noise and hurry it is a still water, a 
''water of quietness" to my soul, by whose side I am led 
by the good Shepherd. Only the quietness is in me, not in 
the brook. It is an effect produced in my soul, whose dis- 
cords, whose jarring echoes of past strife, whose Babel 
sounds and unholy desires, are silenced and quenched by 
the tuneful melodies of the brook. They are repelled by it 
so that great peace comes to the tired brain and weary soul. 

And finally, it is a praiser of God. It is one of His 
works and all His works do praise Him, this one more ihan 
some others. Its song of praise ceases not by night or day, 
and it fits in with many another song which they hear who 
have ears, and which altogether form one unceasing stream 
of melodious praise that rolls in upon the ear of the Creator 
of all things and of all melodies. 



[90] 




VULCAN'S ANVIL, MONUMENT PARK 



CHAPTER VIII 
MOUNTAIN PARKS AND VALLEYS 

OUR common idea of parks is based largely on village and 
town parks of an acre or a few acres in extent, and on 
city parks of several hundred acres, possibly a thousand or 
more. We think of them as planted with trees and flowers 
and with signs up to keep off the grass. Central Park of New 
York City, with its 840 acres, has been to us the typical city 
park, wherein art and nature are combined to make a great 
and beautiful playground for several million people. The 
millions of dollars spent upon such parks is money well 
invested. 

The parks of our western mountains are very different. 
There are indeed some of small size, a few square miles each, 
or even less, like Crystal Park, Manitou Park, Glen Park, 
Pleasant Park, Monument Park, and others in the region of 
Pike's Peak. But the ones first called parks were immense 
in size and were constructed by Nature on a scale to compare 
with her great mountains. For example in Colorado we have 
North Park, containing about 700 square miles, Middle Park 
with nearly 1000, South Park with 870, and San Luis Park 
with 5300 square miles, about twice as large as the other three 
together, two-thirds as large as Massachusetts, five times as 
large as Rhode Island. Then we have the national parks of 
great size, a few of which are: Rocky Mountain Park, 400 
square miles, Yosemite, 1125 square miles. Glacier Park with 

[91] 



MY MOUNTAINS 



1534, and Yellowstone Park with 3348 square miles. These 
larger parks are not level but are mountainous, full of peaks, 
ridges, valleys, etc. The North, South, Middle and San Luis 
Parks of Colorado are the typical mountain parks. To quote 
Enos A. Mills: "These larger ones are simply meadows on a 
magnificent scale. Each is an extensive prairie of irregular 
outline surrounded b}^ high forest-draped mountains with 
snowy peaks, — an inter-mountain plain broken by grassy 
hills and forested ridges. Here a mountain peninsula thrusts 
out into the lowland, and there a grassy bay extends a few 
miles back into the forested mountains." 

John C. Fremont called North Park "a beautiful circular 
valley of thirty miles in diameter, walled in all around with 
snowy mountains, rich with water and with grass, fringed 
with pines on the mountain side below the snow line, and a 
paradise to all grazing animals." 

San Luis Park. Their level floors would indicate that 
many of these parks were once mountain lakes. Parts of San 
Luis Park are so level that in one place the railroad runs 
forty miles in an air line. The altitude of this park is from 
7400 to 8000 feet. The winters are apt to be severe but there 
are many farms in the park and some good-sized towns. It is 
elliptical in shape and lies nearly north and south. The 
greatest length is 140 miles and its greatest width fifty miles. 
The southern third lies in New Mexico. The railroad from 
Garland to Alamosa has no curve for about twenty miles ; 
then turning south it runs about twent^^-five miles further 
with scarcely a curve. At the foot of Mount Blanca, third 
highest mountain in Colorado, it runs, as before stated, about 
forty miles in a straight line. 

The park was once covered with a vast bed of lava which 
may have been 2000 or 3000 feet deep. Then it was covered 

[92] 



1 



MOUNTAIN PARKS AND VALLEYS 

with ice. Many glaciers came down from the mountains and 
formed one great glacier eighty by thirty miles in extent. 
Then it became a fresh water lake, and finally a great moun- 
tain park. 

About thirty fair-sized streams flow from the sur- 
rounding mountains into the park, nineteen of them disap- 
pearing in the porous soil, or flowing into the San Luis Lakes 
in the northern part of the park. These lakes are in a swampy 
region thirty miles long and ten miles wide, having no outlet 
except up into the air and down into the soil. About one- 
quarter of the park can be irrigated. One irrigating canal is 
one hundred feet wide and fifty-six .miles long, besides the 
thirty-five miles where it flows in the bed of a creek, furnishing 
1,620,000,000 gallons of water in twenty-four hours. 

Mount Blanca, 14,390 feet high, the third highest in 
Colorado, rises a mile and a quarter above the park from a 
wonderfully symmetrical base, around which a wagon road 
sweeps in a great semicircle of thirty-five miles. The smooth 
floor of the park gradually rises toward the mountain like a 
great smooth dome. Then comes a forest, then trees and 
broken ground together, then rocks and deep valleys and 
canons, then sharp ridges and great chasms and beetling crags 
and dizzy precipices, then timber line, snow, and finally 
the cold rocky summit, that looks down on so much of Colorado. 
It is worth going far to be able to gaze for an hour from the 
car window upon majestic Blanca as the train crawls along its 
base. In a sub-range 200 miles long, and in a great mountain 
system 2000 miles long and many hundreds of miles wide, 
Blanca reigns as king.* 

The Rio Grande River rises in the San Juan mountains 
and flows through the greater length of the park. Its channel 

* Recent surveys make Mt. Massive and Mt. Elbert each twelve feet higher 
than Blanca. 

[93] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

is like a wide canal that twists about like an endless letter S. 
Going south from Alamosa one can sit on the rear end of the 
last car and study the eastern boundary of the park. In the 
distance are the snowy peaks of the Sangre-de-Christo Range. 
As they appear through the near and green foothills one can 
hardly tell them from w^hite clouds. Within the park many 
hills and groups of hills are seen, a thousand islands, as it 
were, stretching far to the south. Rising like green islets out 
of the level park they are very beautiful, and as we give free 
rein to imagination and think of the time when they were 
indeed islands in the inland sea, their green sides reflected 
from the glassy waters, behold ! imagination becomes reality, 
for they are islands. The water sweeps all around their bases 
and we look out on an inland sea studded with green islands. 
Looking back to the north we see the flood of waters has 
crossed the track a few miles behind us and seems to 
be gradually stealing down upon us. One feels like 
calling upon the engineer to put on more steam and run a 
race with the water. But there is no danger: it is only a 
mirage, a very beautiful and deceptive one. Miles away is a 
Mormon settlement on the banks of the Rio Grande. The few 
little houses are distorted, multiplied in number, and some 
of them appear to rise to a height of many stories. I have 
seen similar mirages on the plains of eastern Colorado, and on 
the prairies of Dakota before they were settled. While living 
in the north part of Colorado Springs I saw almost every day 
one summer a beautiful lake, or the picture of one, three or 
four miles to the north — a mirage. 

As our train climbs out of the park among the low foot- 
hills on the south, the track turns frequently upon itself. In 
one place we pass the same section house three times, each 
time a little higher above it. 

[94] 




THE WITCHES, MONUMENT PARK, COLO. 



MOUNTAIN PARKS AND VALLEYS 

The Uncompaghre Valley. At Ouray, in southwestern 
Colorado, the Uncompaghre River leaves the San Juan Moun- 
tains. From that point down to the Gunnison River, then 
down to the Grand River, and then to the Utah line, there runs 
in a general northwest direction an irregular valley about 150 
miles long and averaging several miles in width. The country 
rises on either side into level tracts of table land, or into 
broken pinon-covered cliffs, or immense stretches of clay hills 
which, like huge upturned washboards, are; seamed with 
ravines and gulches. The view of distant mountains is fine, 
especially from Montrose, from which snow can be seen the 
year around. The nearer views of barren and shapeless 
cretacious beds is sometimes picturesque but more often wierd 
and uncanny. To the north and east the Grand Mesa, whose 
long level summit is a mile above the valley, looks down on the 
whole of it. 

The adobe soil of the valley is so sticky after a rain that 
hens get caught in it and cannot stir until some one scrapes 
the mud from their feet. Its dust when dry is disagreeable, 
while its glare in the hot sun is painful. The cactus abounds, 
its occasional scarlet flowers heightening by contrast the 
desert desolation. We find in that valley the beginnings of 
that wild, unearthly, ghost-like, yet magnificent and, from a 
geological standpoint, intensely interesting scenery, which 
covers tens of thousands of square miles in the southwestern 
part of our country, and of which the Grand Canon of the 
Colorado is the culminating and unequaled feature. 

The altitude of the valley ranges from 4500 to 7300 feet. 
The valley has a hot summer climate, but cool mountain resorts 
are easily reached on the Mesa or in the mountains. The win- 
ter climate is delightful. 

[95] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

This valley was the very heart of the Ute Indian reserva- 
tion. The great chief Onray had his ranch on the tJncom- 
paghre River, and not so many years ago the Ute Indians 
roamed over all this region, fishing in the streams, hunting 
in the mountains and grazing their ponies in the foothills. 
Why conld not the white man have left this remote desert 
valley, shut in by so many and such high ranges, to the In- 
dians ? He might have done so, but he would not, and so the 
Indians had to leave their happy hunting grounds and move 
on to some wilder and more desolate region in Utah. 

And what do we find now in that far away, sunburnt and 
dry valley ? In the first place one can ride through its whole 
length in a palace car. We find towns, like Montrose and 
Grand Junction and Delta, of several thousand people, with 
fine brick blocks and large hotels. We see fields of grain and 
of alfalfa, whose dark green is in strange contrast with the 
clay hills and adobe desert bordering them. The rivers carry 
a large amount of water, and great canals and irrigating 
ditches carry it out or up on the table lands. We find splendid 
orchards and many fine fruit farms. With the rich soil and 
abundant water, the valley is becoming one of the great fruit 
valleys of the West. The near-by mining camps furnish a 
splendid market. In the foothills and mountains, stockmen 
are raising large herds of cattle and horses. There are ranches 
on the slopes of the Grand Mesa. Some drive their herds in 
summer to the top of the Mesa, camping with them among 
bears, mountain lions, trout lakes, clouds, thunder storms, and 
vistas of indescribable scenic views. 

I organized a church at Montrose in 1885. Now there are 
many churches, many Sunday and public schools, all through 
that valley. The valley blossoms as the rose in more ways 
than one. The Indians may not have been treated fairly in 

[96] 



MOUNTAIN PARKS AND VALLEYS 

all things, but it is better in the long run that that valley be 
peopled by whites rather than by wild Indians. 

Jones Park, as it was called in the early days, or Mariana 
Park, as it is called now, is at the head of Bear Creek and near 
Grarfield mountain in the Pike's Peak Range. While camping 
at Seven Lakes in 1882, I went off alone one day to hunt for 
crystals. On returning toward night I went through that 
park, a small one, and found the owner of it, Mr. Jones, who 
had lived there alone for years. They said he was crazy and 
I did not wish to encounter him. I was almost through the 
park and I began to think that I should escape him, when I 
heard him calling on me to stop. Looking back I saw a tall, 
fierce looking man making rapid strides toward me. I felt 
like running from him but I was too weary. He came up 
very close to me and with a wild look in his eyes and with wild 
gestures he harangued me about as follows : " I am the greatest 
man in all this region. I was the first to discover gold in the 
Rocky Mountains, and I know now where there are gold fields 
that will make you rich if you will lend me two hundred dol- 
lars so that I can go to them. I am the greatest geologist in 
the countr}^ and all the other great ones have been here to 
consult me. I own this park. I ask $20,000 for it. Some men 
want to buy it but we can 't quite agree on the price ; they offer 
me only $500, and now they are trying to steal it from me. I 
don't dare to go down to Colorado Spring for groceries, and 
I am starving. I haven't had a square meal for three weeks." 
I offered him the remnant of my lunch, but he refused it. He 
insisted on my going back to see his cabin. I found it in per- 
fect order, as neat and clean as any woman could keep it. The 
sitting room contained beautiful furniture made by himself, 
and rugs made from the skins of wild beasts. The walks in his 
yard were bordered with fine green crystals of Amazon stone. 

[97] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

I looked nervous!}^ at several guns hanging on the walls, but 
the crazj^ man did not offer to take them down. I heartily 
praised what I saw and soon left him. He strode back to 
the work of digging big stones out of his fish pond. He 
wanted no woman to come on his premises. A few weeks later 
I heard he was dead, and so far as I know the mystery of 
his life was buried with him. 

Fourteen years later my son and myself followed North 
Cheyenne Creek and Canon up into that park to find Prof. 
Loud's summer cabin. It began to rain and we got very wet 
floundering through the underbrush. We lost our bearings 
and we ourselves became lost. I became so utterly exhausted, 
I urged my son to go on and leave me, but of course he 
would not. The night was coming on and things looked 
gloomy. We struggled on for sometime, finally we struck 
a trail and soon, blessed sight ! we saw the smoke curling 
from the chimney of the mountain log cabin. A warm wel- 
come from the Professor and his good wife, a blazing fire, a 
hot supper, a story-telling evening, a refreshing sleep — these 
comforted and strengthened us. 

The great plains east of the Rocky Mountains were once 
called the Great American Desert. I have old geographies 
in which they are so labeled, but they might be called the Great 
Park. I have crossed that park by rail some forty times or 
more. It takes a swift train all night, or all day, or all night 
and all day, according to where one bounds it on the east. 
When I first crossed it, in 1876, I saw no village for some 
three hundred miles, and but few cattlemen's dugouts. But 
I saw antelope, countless prairie dog villages, buffalo skele- 
tons, a few emigrant wagons, and at last, far on the western 
horizon, the Snowy Mountains, the mountains that are now 
mine. 

[98] 



CHAPTER IX 
CANONS AND CLIFF DWELLINGS 

A WESTERN miner was walking through the streets of 
New York City among the skyscrapers. He became 
perplexed about his locality and sang out: "I say, partner, 
what canon is this?" His question will help to give an idea 
of what a canon is to those who never saw one. 

Canons are deep cuts through the rocks, from a few 
feet to a mile or more in depth, and from a few rods to sev- 
eral hundred miles in length. Generally a stream runs 
through them, sometimes a rivulet and sometimes a mighty 
raging river. The opposite walls sometimes slope inward, 
so that the canon is narrower at the top than at the bottom ; 
sometimes they are perpendicular, but generally they slope 
outward, so that the top is wider than the bottom. Some- 
times they consist of alternate precipices and slopes. 

It is a mooted question, whether the stream makes the 
canon, or -finds it. Probably it does both. The stream has 
to have a channel, and finding a depression, a crevice, or 
fissure in the rock, it goes to work and in the course of ages 
changes it to a deep channel, a canon. A canon is a kind of 
valley, only it is narrower and has steep slopes and rocky 
walls. Every canon is a valley, but not every valley is a 
canon. 

It is difficult to find two canons just alike, though they 
may closely resemble each other. Those that run through 

[99] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

granite are apt to have irregular sloping walls, often with 
rounded protuberances. Those that run through stratified 
rocks are apt to have perpendicular Avails. But there are 
exceptions in both cases. 

When the canon floors, slopes and summits, one or all, 
are covered with flowers, shrubs and trees, with waterfalls 
and cascades here and there, they give us wonderful combi- 
nations of beauty and grandeur. But when, as in the Royal 
Gorge of the Arkansas, there are only huge rocks and lofty 
precipices, the views may be awful and sublime, but not 
charming or beautiful. 

Having been through -the most noted canons of the 
Rocky Mountains, and through some of them many times, I 
will try to describe some of the most interesting and tell 
of some of my canon trips. 

The streams from the high mountains generally emerge 
upon the plains through canons that are made in the foot- 
hills, the foothills, that would elsewhere be called mountains, 
being from 2000 to 4000 feet above the nearby plains. Along 
the eastern edge of the mountains in Colorado are many 
canons that are well known because they are near the great 
tide of travel, or because railroads run through them and 
have extensively advertised them. Some of them I can only 
name in passing, though in them I have spent many de- 
lightful hours. North and South Boulder Canons; Clear 
Creek Canon with its famous loop, where the railroad 
crosses its own track ninety feet above it; Platte Canon, 
with its many charming summer resorts; Queen's Canon, 
near the Garden of the Gods, once open to the public but 
now closed; Engleman's Canon, with its rare beauties, some 
of which were spoiled by the cog-road to Pike's Peak; Wil- 
liam's Canon, close to Manitou, cut through stratified rock, 

[lOO] 



CANONS AND CLIFF DWELLINGS 

ill which the boys and I discovered the famous Cave of the 
Winds (see Chapter XII) ; North Cheyenne Canon, up which 
one can wander for miles past wondrous rocks and charm- 
ing waterfalls ; South Cheyenne Canon, with its great preci- 
pices and its famous Seven Falls, overlooked by the famous 
poet's empty grave. The last five are near Colorado Springs. 

Forty miles further south and west is the Arkansas 
Canon, many miles in length, with the Royal Gorge as its 
grandest feature. They used to call the Gorge 4000 feet 
deep. It is an awful gorge, but from the summit of the 
high rock above the bridge to the river is 1800 feet. Canon 
depths and mountain heights are quite apt to be exaggerated. 
When the railroad was first built through the canon it was 
my privilege to arrange for the first excursion through it. 
Our church got a good financial return (see Chapter III). 

Between Leadville and Glenwood Springs the railroad 
runs through Eagle Canon, cut through granite rock, with 
irregular walls and huge boulders that have tumbled into 
the stream, that goes roaring and boiling over, under and 
around them. Up on dizzy heights is the mining town of 
Gilman, a group of modern cliff dwellings. 

Further on is the Canon of the Grand River. It is one 
of the finest canons in Colorado. It is about fifteen miles 
long and runs through stratified rock. Its precipitous walls 
are a thousand feet high, more or less, often rising straight 
from the water. The rock is of a reddish color, with vary- 
ing shades of yellow and gray, so that the contrasted effects 
with the dark evergreens that grow in gorges and on the 
summits, and with the lighter green foliage lining the river 
banks below, are very fine. The view from the car window is 
an ever-changing panoramic picture that is never dull, always 
beautiful, and often grand. 

[lOl] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

Cascade Canon. Before we go down into the region of 
the truly grand canons let us rest awhile in a charming little 
canon valley at the foot of Pike's Peak, one that I had over- 
looked during a residence of five years, a few miles away. 
After a hot summer and some fever the doctor and my trustees 
told me to go off and rest. I sought for a quiet mountain ranch 
where city sights and sounds were shut out, where I could find 
quiet and sunshine, balmy pines and babbling brooks, beauti- 
ful scenery, pleasant people, no appointments to meet, no calls 
to make or receive, fresh eggs, pure milk, and plenty of ozone. 
I found them all at Cascade Canon, five miles up Ute Pass 
from Manitou, among the great hills and mountains tiiat 
nestle around the feet of their king. Pike's Peak. Crowds go 
there now, for a railroad passes the spot and great hotels have 
been built. The place is still beautiful, and will be as long as 
the canon and cascades, the forests and foliage, remain. But 
there is a pleasure in finding such places before the crowd 
does, and then in having one's judgment of their beauty con- 
firmed by artists, capitalists and the crowd. 

For a week I worked as hard as I could at resting, a solid 
week it was, of pure rest, and of worship in God's temple. 

The people were few^ and pleasant. I heard no oath for a 
week. The weather was superb, every minute of it. Days of 
mellow sunshine followed nights of crisp starlight. For hours 
I lay in the hammock among the odorous pines, resting, whit- 
tling, dreaming day dreams, watching the squirrels and chip- 
munks, watching the great mountains that seemed so restful 
and calm, watching the dark forests that stretched far up their 
sides, watching the groves of aspen trees whose golden yellow 
crept with each night's frost a little further down the moun- 
tain side, even as in spring, their light and airy green creeps 
each day a little further up the mountain, and watching the 

[102] 




IN CASCADE CANON, NEAR PIKE'S PEAK 



CANONS AND CLIFF DWELLINGS 

fleecy clouds that came floating over the mountain tops. Close 
by me was the stream, clear, pure, sparkling, making sweet 
music night and day, full of pools and eddies, lined and paved 
with great boulders, and fringed with bushes and mossy 
banks. 

But the canon was the great attraction. Its beauty is in 
its cascades and its foliage. It is hardly a regular canon, but 
a deep valley running up the steep mountain side. Into it 
there rolled in past ages many immense rocks from the rocky 
heights above. Over and around those rocks and up the sides 
of the valley, grows a forest of evergreens and alders. 

Down through this jumble of rocks and trees, over, 
around, through and under them, comes a good-sized stream 
of crystal water from the snow banks on the northern slopes of 
Pike's Peak. In one mile the stream falls a thousand feet or 
more, yet I never saw a stream that had to work so hard to get 
down hill. It frets and foams, rushes and roars, dodges and 
disappears, crawls under rocks like a snake, runs through 
hollow logs like a squirrel, or flies in the air like a bird. 
Escaping from one jumbled mass of rocks and trees it hurries 
to the next and finally conquers them all and flows peacefully 
off to the plains, the great river and the ocean. 

Here is a rock thirty feet high with a tree growing out of 
its top. Beyond it is a flat rock seventy feet long, fifteen feet 
wide and ten feet high. Its top is fringed with small trees. 
Gro on and in quick succession we come to falls and cascades, 
ten feet high, fifteen feet, four, five, ten, twenty-five, five, five, 
six, ten, fifteen, twenty, ten, fifty, and so on and on for a mile 
or more. Here is a tiny island covered with alders and grass. 
Let us sit on its upper end and look up stream, and we see 
cascade after cascade, a long irregular stairway of foaming 
waters. 

[103] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

Over and around them are the green trees ; beyond is the 
dark forest, and above that a great gray precipice of rock with 
tall dead trees bristling on its far uplifted summit. In another 
place we look up the canon through green trees and among 
the tree tops, so steep is the valley, we catch glimpses of 
of white cascades, that one would think were snowdrifts, were 
it not for their tremulous motion. They look like snowy tapes- 
try, shaken by the fairies among the tree tops. In one place 
we see every variety of cascades ; the pent up rushing cascade, 
the swirling cascade, the thin glassy cascade, the shower cas- 
cade, the hidden cascade, and all the varieties between. 

And all the time, while my eye feasts on beauty, I hear the 
roar of the brook, so soothing to the tired brain, so different 
from the roar of the city torrent : 

"That beats 
Its life along the city streets 
Like a strong and unsunned river. 
Very sad and very hoarse, certes is the flow of souls. ' 



I shut my eyes, and listen, and what rare music I hear 
How the myriad drops, as they strike rock and air and each 
other, tinkle and resound and mingle their varied notes ! That 
brook sang to me a wondrous song which I cannot translate 
into earth language, but the burden of it was praise and 
thanksgiving to God. 

Canon of the Bio Las Animas. Between Durango and Sil- 
verton in southwestern Colorado is the Canon of the Eio Las 
Animas. I have been through it a number of times and have 
always regarded it as the finest canon in Colorado. The 
ascent is from 6500 feet at Durango to 9224 feet at Silverton, 
an ascent of 2724 feet. The distance is forty-five miles, the 

[104] 



^11 



CANONS AND CLIFF DWELLINGS 

first seventeen being through a fine valley of valuable farms, 
but we do not go far before we begin to see canon walls. We 
see immense red rocks and immense white rocks, both rising 
out of dark green forests. 

In the distance we see lofty mountain heights that are 
reached by long stretches of green slopes. There comes a 
stream of water, now crawling and now leaping down a greai 
red rock. It comes out of a green forest and disappears in 
green foliage. Far up in yonder sky-lifted forest is a great 
precipice of white rock on a red base. Yond^er is a great 
promontory of red rock, half a mile long, fringed and crowned 
with green. In the distance those red rocks look like walls of 
jasper or carnelian, and where the red and white rocks lie in 
alternate layers they look like a gigantic sardonyx, a half mile 
long and four hundred feet high, all set in the emerald green 
of the forest. 

We climb the side of the valley, pass through deep cuts 
in the rock and come to a narrow canon where the walls rise 
several hundred feet above the river. The road-bed is cut in 
the side of the precipice. It makes us dizzy to look up and 
dizzy to look down, but there is a fascination about it that 
makes us keep on looking. I ride on the top of the baggage 
car and as I look straight down upon the river it is of a deep 
green, greener than any water that plays about Niagara. I 
also look straight down on the tops of tall coniferous trees 
that cling to the side of the canon wall below. 

Near this point I leave the train and go a mile or more to 
see an interesting box canon that cannot be seen from the 
train. It is several hundred feet deep and its opposite walls 
are very close together. Through this gorge the waters rush 
like a race horse and foam and rage like a wild beast. In spots 
however the river is like a still pool of deepest blue. In one 

[105] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

place I can see where the walls are only a few feet apart and 
the channel is choked with rocks and driftwood under which 
the river works its way ont of sight. When it reappears it 
forms a pool of very blue and doubtless very deep water, from 
the lower end of which the smooth and apparently motionless 
water suddenly breaks into a foaming white current that hur- 
ries away, as though it had tarried too long in that charming 
hiding place. 

The trees and logs that are carried, or hurled, through this 
canon are stripped of branches and bark before they get 
through. In one place the water, when it was very high, lodged 
seven logs, one above the other, reaching across from wall to 
wall, and wedged them in, forming a huge ladder across the 
chasm. 

I descended to the water's edge at one spot, with difficulty, 
and found the stream of great depth and flowing with such 
force that it instantly swept away the largest rock I could hurl 
into it. 

But this box canon, some four hundred feet deep, is only 
a little gorge within, or at the mouth of, the real canon or 
valley of the Rio-de-las- Animas, or River of lost Souls. And 
into the larger canon or valley, we now enter. Majestic rocks, 
and towering cliffs rise above us. Between them are side 
gorges, through whose fallen rocks and tawgled forests come 
tributary streams, any one of which would bear a day's study 
if we had time to explore it. 

There is Mount Garfield, towering in the sky like a vast 
irregular dome. Its summit is a mile above us. And there are 
the Needles, the like of whose gigantic masses of rock is not 
seen in many places on earth. The fields of ice and snow abide 
there the year round and they seem fit brooding places for 
fierce storms. Those sharp peaks catch and tear to tatters the 

[io6] 



CANONS AND CLIFF DWELLINGS 

clouds that float against them. In summer they echo and re- 
echo the thunder peal, while in winter is heard of times the- 
awful roar of the avalanche. 

I stretch my neck and try to locate the timber line. 
Pointed spurs of the forest, stretch far up the steep sides, 
while broad streams of boulders and splintered trees reach 
down through the forest even to the river. They are the paths 
of the avalanche. Forest and avalanche fight for the mastery. 
Every winter the battle rages, while summer strives to heal the 
scars. 

The number and variety of the streams that flow into this 
canon are a constant delight. Some come with a bound over 
high rocks and fall directly into the river ; some fret and foam 
their way through the woods and over the rocks ; some glide 
slyly and noiselessly in under a dense growth of alders ; some 
slide smoothly down the worn rock and make no fuss about 
it. In all ways and of all sizes they come. We hear a roaring 
noise above the roaring of the train ; we turn our eyes and 
catch a momentary glimpse of a snow-white cascade close to the 
track, and one brief, tantalizing glimpse of a deep, wild, 
wooded gorge above it, that stretches back into and between 
the mountains. 

1^'inally we enter an open park, a miie or so acruss, sur- 
rounded by high mountains, and we are at Silverton. We have 
been four hours coming forty-five miles. It seems less than that 
and it seems longer, for the hours have passed rapidly, and in 
them we have lived days. In such a place the legend of the 
monk might be repeated and "a hundred years not seem so 
long as a single day.'' 

The Grand Canon. In the summer of 1884 the friend 
(Rev. W. D. Westervelt) with whom I took many mountain 
trips, and myself, found ourselves at Albuquerque in New 

[107] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

Mexico helping" to organize an association of churches for New 
Mexico and Arizona. To him that hath shall be given, and 
as we had passes from Denver more were given us, so that the 
way suddenly opened for us to go five hundred miles further 
west and visit the Grand Canon of the Colorado, the Grand 
Canon of America and of the world. 

We left Albuquerque at four Monday morning. In the 
early dawn we crossed the Rio Grande River, passed the Indian 
pueblos of Isleta and Laguna, rode many miles close to a wild 
black river of congealed lava, and for forty miles or so along- 
side of vast cliffs or red rock, the jura-trias of geologists, such 
as one sees often along the base of the Rocky Mountains, as 
for example in the Garden of the Gods. Over canons we rode 
and through canons, across deserts, over grassy highlands, 
through open forests where snowy peaks looked down upon us, 
now catching sight of some old fortifications on a high cliff, now 
of a Mexican village, now of a band of Navajo Indians, and 
once of the skeleton of a horse standing up, as though 
he had forgotten to lie down when he died. So on we go 
through this wonderland, this orient of America. 

At one o'clock Tuesday morning we were at Peach 
Springs, Arizona, the nearest point to the Grand Canon then 
reached by the railroad. We had sent word ahead for a 
team to be ready to start at once for the canon, twenty-three 
miles north. Ten dollars each for the round trip seemed a 
high price after riding free 1000 miles on the cars, but we 
gladly paid it. A hasty cup of coff'ee and we were on the buck- 
board behind two good horses. We must be back in seventeen 
hours to catch the east-bound train. 

' ' Give me my revolver, ' ' we heard the driver say, ' ' There 
are some hard characters in town tonight, and they may hold 

[io8] 



CANONS AND CLIFF DWELLINGS 

us up if they know that I am taking out tourists at this time 
of night." 

So for the first two or three miles I nervously watched 
the bushes along the road, wondering what I would do if I 
should hear the call : ' ' Hands up, ' ' and the driver should 
answer by opening fire. 

Our road lay down Peach Springs Canon, dry then but 
showing evidence of fearful torrents at times. When day 
broke the rocky walls were rising thousands of feet above us. 

''Do you see that cave in the cliff?" said the driver. 
''How far do you suppose it is from the top." "Fifty feet," 
I answered. 

"It is 250 feet," said he, "I know for I let myself down 
to it once with a rope." 

I did not dispute his statement, but I said to myself, 
"perhaps." 

Calling our attention to a conical hill ahead of us he asked 
how far we thought it was. I was accustomed to the deceptive 
distances of the mountains, and not wishing to be voted a 
tenderfoot, I said: "Three-quarters of a mile," though in the 
gray dawn it appeared much less than that. " It is five miles, ' ' 
said he. I did not believe him then, but an hour later I did. 
That hill was at the end of our journey. Haystack Peak, 3900 
feet high, he said. There was a standing offer of twenty dollars 
to any one who would replace the flag that had once been on 
its summit. I did not compete for that prize. 

We reached the canon at six and had four hours to stay. 
Would that it had been four days ! Time was too precious to 
waste in eating breakfast. Snatching a biscuit and eating as 
we went, we climbed a hill a thousand feet high or more, 
reaching the top in twenty-five minutes. We chose that as 
giving us a better view and wider outlook, instead of following 

[109] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

Diamond Creek down to where it enters the Colorado, where 
the view, though fine, is too contracted. 

When we reached the summit of the hill we turned and 
looked, and looked, and looked. For awhile I could say 
nothing but Oh ! Oh ! Oh ! And then in those profound canon 
depths I repeated what I said on the profound mountain 
heights of Gray's Peak: "Before the mountains were brought 
forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world even 
from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. ' ' Such emotions 
of grandeur I think I had never before experienced. I had stood 
on Pike's Peak at sunrise and looked down on 10,000 square 
miles of white billowy clouds, with here and there an opening 
to show the green earth beneath. I had looked from the sum- 
mit of Mount Lincoln out upon a ragged, storm-tossed sea of 
snow-capped peaks and ranges, stretching far as the eye could 
reach. I had stood in the Royal Gorge, and had looked from 
one of the Elk Mountain peaks down into wondrous valleys. 
I had stood by Niagara and listened to its thunderous roar, but 
that first glimpse of the world's great canon eclipsed them all. 
We looked down on the turbid Colorado River, seemingly a 
narrow sluggish stream, but really a swiftly rushing torrent, 
the drainage of 300,000 square miles, and of many great 
mountain ranges, whose deep winter snows were then fast dis- 
appearing under the summer sun. At that point the river was 
about 250 feet wide, but it was some 200 feet deep, and was 
then some fifty feet above low water mark. The Haystack was 
behind us, 3900 feet high. One might call it 4000, but who 
wants to tell a lie for a hundred feet? Back of it was Sun- 
set Peak, 6000 feet high, they said. Across the river Solomon's 
Temple, stupendous and grand, rose some 6000 feet above the 
river. Mount Emma, Tower of Babel, and other cliffs were 
about as high. Remember, their summits are on the level of 

[no] 



CANONS AND CLIFF DWELLINGS 

the surrounding country, and the river has slowly cut the 
canon out of the rock as the whole region was slowly 
rising. The cliffs are made up of many perpendicular 
precipices connected by steep slopes of debris. We could look 
up and down the river for miles, and could see, counting both 
sides, about twenty miles of those marble walls, stupendous 
in size and height, yet wonclrously colored and carved and 
wondrously beautiful and sublime. 

And then we remembered that the canon was about 300 
miles long and that in places it was 6000 feet or more in depth, 
and we thought of the wonderful exploit of one-armed Major 
Powell, who in 1869, and again in 1871, descended the whole 
length of the canon in a boat, an exploit that has been repeated 
but few times in the half century since then. 

Descending the hill we went a mile or two up Diamond 
Creek Canon. It is a side-show, yet in some respects it excels 
any canon in Colorado. At one point the black igneous walls 
were only twelve feet apart at the bottom and rose 2700 feet, 
they said. Many years ago an adventurer ' ' salted ' ' that canon 
with thousands of dollars worth of diamonds and started the 
great Arizona diamond excitement. Hence the name of the 
canon. 

Ten o'clock came too soon. We started back in the intense 
heat of an Arizona midsummer day. Most mercilessly did 
the sun beat down into the canon. The road out was sandy, 
rocky, dusty and very steep. It was nine miles to water, a 
stagnant spring open to the sun and full of insects, then ten 
miles to more water. At the railroad at six p. m. the ther- 
mometer stood at 102°. When within a half mile of the depot 
we saw our train moving awa}^ from the station. It was run- 
ning wild and ahead of time. They ran into the mountains 
and were side-tracked where it was not too hot for the train- 

[III] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

men to get some sleep. We took a freight train three hours 
later and overtook them the next morning and rode until we 
left the train to visit some : 

Clijf Dwellings. Scattered thickly over southern Colorado 
and northern New Mexico and Arizona are the remains of 
ancient towns and fortifications that were built by a race of 
people whose, history is shrouded in mystery. When Pike was 
in New Mexico in 1806-7 he mentions them and says they were 
built by the Mexicans when they came from the north on their 
v/ay to the plains of Mexico. They w^ere there when the 
Spainards came to the country several centuries ago. They 
were evidently built for protection from enemies; probably 
by the ancestors of the present Pueblo Indians. After 
spending a day among the living Pueblos, in one of their 
largest villages, or community houses, and then a day among 
the cliff dwellings, this theory seemed to us true. We bought 
in one place just such pottery as we picked up fragments of in 
the other place, and we saw Indian women grinding their grain 
with just such stone mills, one stone rubbed against another, 
as we found among the cliff-dwellings. 

The ones we visited, are eight miles from Flagstaff, Ari- 
zona, but only three miles from Casnino, a flag station from 
which we walked to the ruins. 

Walnut Canon, in which they are found, runs through a 
comparatively level region, covered with pines and cedars. 
The locality itself must have been difficult for an enemy to find. 
Our walk was a warm one but we caught frequent glimpses of 
great beds of snow on the extinct volcano of the San Francisco 
Mountains. 

Suddenly we came to the edge of a canon several hundred 
feet deep and with some difficulty we scrambled down into it. 
About half way down we found a thick layer of rock that had 

[112] 




IN NORTH CHEYENNE CANON, COLORADO 



CANONS AND CLIFF DWELLINGS 

worn away much more rapidly than the rock just above it. 
The result was that on that level, for miles on both sides of 
the canon, there were open caves or rooms from five to ten feet 
hi^h, running back into the rock from five to twenty feet, and 
some of them 100 to 200 feet long. The Indians easily enclosed 
these rooms by building a wall in front two feet thick, and by 
dividing them into separate rooms by walls equally thick. 
Usually a narrow shelf of rock, covered perhaps by a pro- 
jecting rock above, was left in front of the dwelling, on which 
the people could pass from room to room and from dwelling to 
dwelling. In front there were steep slopes or sheer precipices 
down to the bottom of the canon. The point of the canon 
which we visited was admirably adapted for defense. The 
canon swept around in a large circle and almost came back 
upon itself, leaving only a narrow precipitous strip of land 
running out to the peninsula that came so near being an island. 
On the highest point we found ancient rude fortifications. 
From that lookout the approach of an enemy could be at once 
signalled to the dwellings on both sides of the canon for a 
long distance. 

We visited some twenty or thirty dwellings, each with 
from two to ten rooms. They varied in size and height. Some 
of them were open, the walls having fallen down, while others 
were perfectly preserved, entered by a very narrow door, or 
perhaps only by a window two feet square. In one dwelling 
there were inner rooms, reached from the outer ones only by 
climbing over a high wall. Often the back part of a room was 
raised a foot or so, making a stone bed, after the oriental style, 
on which the whole family could sleep. In almost every case 
the walls had settled a little from the overhanging cliff, up to 
which they were originally built. The floors of most of the 

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MY MOUNTAINS 

rooms were covered with a deep la^^er of dust, ashes and debris. 
Digging for relics w^as dusty work. 

On the opposite side of the canon we found a dwelling 
that had evidently not been visited. I noticed one room was 
only about four feet wide. I thought it must have been a 
store room and I began to dig in the debris. It proved to be 
the store-room, garret, cellar, and dump heap for that whole 
row of dwellings. In our excitement we forgot to be careful 
about rattlesnakes, centipedes and tarantulas, yet we saw none 
of them. AVe dug in the rubbish for an hour and found among 
other things, an old and deeply worn stone mill, metate and 
manno being the two parts, cornstalks and cobs, beans, 
gourds, nuts, reeds, arrows, bow-strings, coarse cloth, a child's 
sandal, a measuring stick with notches, small sticks used for 
some game, bone needles, a fish-line, soapweed needles, broken 
pottery, etc. We came away heavily laden. 

We had agreed to go to the bottom of the canon and find 
a place to stay all night. I went down ahead of my two com- 
panions, they going round a rocky point to see some other 
ruins. Then they went down at another place and I found I 
was separated from them by a dark pool of water that filled 
the bottom of the canon from wall to wall, and also that I was 
out of their sight and hearing. I was provoked because they 
did not descend at the point agreed on, and I resolved to stay 
right where I was, for I was too tired to climb and descend that 
canon wall again. Then I remembered the other men had the 
lunch, what little there was. I was hungry as well as tired and 
I began to waver in my purpose to stay alone. Then I won- 
dered if I could get through that pool of water. I could not 
swim, but perhaps I could wade it. I tied all my relics in a 
bundle on my back, I took off my shoes and stockings, rolled 

[114] 



CANONS AND CLIFF DWELLINGS 

up my pants and cautiously waded in. The water was not 
over my head and I got through all right. 

That night we slept on a narrow bed of sand which we 
spread over the rough stones on a narrow ledge about three 
feet wide. One old shawl covered all three of us. When one 
wanted to turn over he had to give the others notice and per- 
suade them to join in the movement. We did not turn over 
very often. 

Close under the beetling cliff, with a pool of water to our 
left, and the dying embers of our camp fire behind us, miles 
from any human habitation, we lay down and commended our- 
selves to Him whose angel encampeth round about them that 
fear Him. We thought of the time, centuries ago, when those 
wild cliffs echoed with the cries and laughter, the songs and 
war-whoops, of that mysterious race. Out of the depths of that 
narrow gorge we looked up at the silent stars as they slowly 
moved across the top of the canon ; the same stars upon which 
the Indians once looked from the same depths. 

The cars seemed a great luxury when we reached them the 
next day. When our train stopped for dinner a man came 
from his dinner into an adjoining ear and carelessly kicked 
his satchel to one side. His loaded revolver in the satchel went 
off and killed him. A man in front of me and another across 
the aisle concluded to take their loaded revolvers out of their 
satchels. We felt we were safer in all that trip, and in all 
our trips, without revolvers than with them. We were in more 
danger from revolvers in satchels than in men's hands. 

We reached Denver Saturday night, after a journey of 
2000 miles, after a long delay from a washout, and without un- 
dressing from Monday morning until Saturday night. And 

[115] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

that week on the cars and in the canons, down in the orient of 
America, remains a red letter week in my memory. 

After the Santa Fe railroad built a branch road from 
Williams to the brink of the Grand Canon, sixty-four miles, I 
went again. After the first impressive view near the El Tovar 
Hotel, where it is thirteen miles across to the opposite rim, and 
4500 feet in depth to the river, I started down the Bright 
Angel Trail. I saw the green Indian Gardens far below and 
thought I could go down to them and return in two or three 
hours. I had got the impression that the descent was 1300 feet. 
I really went beyond the gardens, to the plateau, over four 
miles, Vvdth a descent of more than 3000 feet. The round trip 
took me five hours. Coming out was very hard on me, for I 
was then bearing the burden of gray hairs. It was the hardest 
tramp since climbing Pike's Peak in 1896, sixteen years before. 
When I got out I was ''all in." That night I saw the sun as it 
set and lighted up the rocks, domes and temples, bringing out 
colors and forms in a wonderful way. The week before I had 
visited Yosemite, but with that marvelous valley fresh in mind 
I could still say that the Grand Canon was America's peerless 
sight, the greatest gorge in the earth's side, and, next to the 
starry skies, the most awe-inspiring thing that our eyes can 
behold. 

Yellowstone Canon. In other chapters I write about 
Yellowstone Park and Yellowstone Falls. A few words here 
about the Yellowstone Canon. Aside from the geysers the 
chief attractions are the falls and the canon. At the lower 
falls the canon is 800 feet deep and it is twenty miles long. In 
the deepest part it is 1200 feet deep. The average depth is 
about 1000 feet. The river has cut its way through rhyolite, or 
lava rock. The walls are not perpendicular but slope from 

[ii6] 



CANONS AND CLIFF DWELLINGS 

45° to 75°. The river falls 1304 feet in twenty-four miles, or 
500 feet in the mile that includes the two falls and the rapids 
between. 

The walls are of many colors, gray, red, green, yellow and 
brown. The best effect, as in the springs also, is when the sun 
is shining. At times the effect is very beautiful. Going some 
distance down the top of the canon wall we descended part way 
to the bottom, and some of our party went clear down to the 
river. At one place we could drop a stone which took from 
five to seven seconds to reach the bottom. The view looking up 
the canon with the lower falls at its head, was very fine. 
Looking down to the river we saw a young deer that had gone 
down there after water. 

Looking down upon the top of some steep pinnacles of 
rock we saw a big eagle's nest on their inaccessable top. The 
nest was about six feet across. The young eagles were being 
urged and taught to fly. We could see the fish that the old 
eagles brought them, having obtained them by diving into the 
river after sighting them from the air above. There was no 
scrambling for the fish by the eaglets, but a respectful holding 
back until it was signified in some way that they could help 
themselves. 

Talmadge, a former famous Brooklyn preacher, visited 
the canon and wrote a very exaggerated description of it that 
was widely used in advertising the canon and park. He cer- 
tainly exercised an exuberant imagination when he imagined 
the Judgment Day as being held in that canon, which at a 
fair estimate would be much crowded if one half of the people 
of the United States were in it. Even for that number it 
would be an exceedingly uncomfortable place for such an 
assize as that day is commonly supposed to be. 

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MY MOUNTAINS 

The lady in charge of our camp wanted me to. say that 
the canon was the grandest thing I had ever seen. I told her 
that it was indeed a very fine canon, but that I had been in 
The Grand Canon of the Colorado, which was fifteen or twenty 
times as long and in places five times as deep, and that I 
could not tell a lie. 



[ii8] 



CHAPTER X 

MOUNTAIN PASSES 

MOUNTAINS are exceedingly irregular in height, slope 
and contour. They are sometimes regularly irregular. 
Except in the case of some Grand Mesa mountains they do 
not have an even, unbroken sky line. From some points near 
the mountains the sun rises, or sets, a half hour earlier, or 
later, than at other points, according as it rises or sets over 
a summit or over a pass. The low depressions, or passes, 
determine the trail by which wild beasts cross the range, then 
the Indians, then the explorer and the prospector, and finally 
the wagon road, the railroad, and even the air-ship. The 
clouds, the air currents and the storms often cross in the same 
low depression. 

John Muir says that in the Sierra Mountains between 
latitude 36° 20' and 38° the lowest passes are at about 9000 
feet, while the average height of all that are in use is about 
11,000 feet. ■ Not one is a carriage pass. He states that "be- 
tween the Sonora Pass and the southern extremity of the High 
Sierra, a distance of nearly 160' miles, there are only five 
passes through which trails conduct from one side of the range 
to the other," and that practically only three are Used. 

Marshall Pass. A book might be written about the moun- 
tain passes in Colorado, about their trails, wagon roads and 
railroads, their scenery, flora and fauna. Let us begin with 
Marshall Pass, which crosses the Continental Divide south of 



MY MOUNTAINS 

Mount Ouray, connecting the southern Arkansas Yalley with 
the Gunnison valley and region. Its altitude is 10,846 feet. I 
first crossed the pass in 1880 in a stage. From Salida to the 
top of the pass is about twenty miles, rising 3800 feet. Of 
course the stage moved slowly and horses were changed every 
few miles. Going down on the other side I had my first 
experience in riding down a winding mountain road with six 
horses running at full speed. The curves were sharp and the 
descent rapid, but the road-bed was good, and there was 
nothing to do but resign oneself to a strong brake, a skillful 
driver and a good Providence, and then lean back and enjoy 
it. At the first halt on the other side the tires of the rear 
wheels were hissing hot, so cl:sely was the brake applied. 

Our stage was nearly two hours ahead of its usual time, 
as we had met or passed fewer freight teams than usual. 
About fourteen miles from Gunnison, at a place v/here the 
bushes by the roadside were very thick, five highwaymen, or 
'^road agents," were lying in wait for our stage after it had 
passed. They had to content themselves with taking $105 
from a solitary horseman. We learned later that two of our 
fellow passengers were carrying much money to invest in mines. 

The first time that I crossed Marshall Pass by rail was 
in the winter. In the valley the ground was bare but long 
before we reached the summit we were in the snow. The 
mountains were dazzlingly white, relieved only by the great 
forests of dark evergreens. It was practically a landscape 
of black and white. Across the great valley, leagues and 
leagues to the southeast, rose the sharp serrated line of the 
Sangre-de-Christo Mountains. Our eyes followed it far to 
the south, where it formed the eastern wall of San Luis Park. 
In crossing Marshall Pass, if one wishes the best views he 
should have a seat on the left hand side of the car in ascending, 

[120] 



MOUNTAIN PASSES 

whether going- east or west, and on the right hand side in 
descending. 

After riding several miles we look down several hundred 
feet upon the track that we came over a half hour before. In 
one place the track runs around a large hill. A few more 
rails would complete the circuit, but it is rising all the time. 
G-oing down the west side the engine that helped pull our train 
up goes on ahead. At one place we can see it, or at night its 
headlight, coming directly towards us while it is speeding 
ahead on the same track. 

The next two times I crossed the pass in midsummer. 
The distant mountain views were perhaps no finer than in 
winter, but the near views of grassy slopes and timbered hills, 
of deep valleys and fringed precipices, of wondrous beds of 
wild flowers and sylvan retreats, cool with the spray of crystal 
waters — these were beautiful beyond anything seen in winter. 

My fifth crossing was late in September, and — well it was 
simply glorious ! The winter view is grand ; the summer 
view is charming, but the autumn view is inspiring. It fills 
ones soul. It gives one a new sense of beauty ; of beauty on a 
large free scale, of beauty and grandeur combined. 

The dark far-stretching forests are still there, as in sum- 
mer and winter, as unchanged apparently as the gray rocks 
out of which many of them grow. But now they are brought 
into contrast, not with white or green, but with the brilliant 
yellow and red autumn foliage of the quaking aspens and the 
scrub-oak. Yellow and red may not be our favorite colors, but 
when they occur in all shades and tints, and are scattered in 
single trees and large groves through the evergreen forests, 
and when one can look down and out and up upon miles and 
miles of such contrasts, they are beautiful. The combination 
certainly is. One can partly close his eyes and imagine that in 

[121] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

innumerable places the woods are on fire. The smokeless flames 
are leaping skyward; the trees are burning: but are not con- 
sumed, and one feels that God is speaking to him out of 
myriads of burning bushes. 

Alpine Pass. This pass is between Mount Princeton and 
Mount Antero of the continental range, and is 11,626 feet high. 
Our train entered Chalk Creek Canon at daybreak and fol- 
lowed it for many miles. It is so straight that it seems like 
a telescope looking through the mountains, or like a vast tun- 
nel with the roof removed. We pass Alpine, once a booming 
mining camp, but prosperity seems to have deserted it. We 
pass a hamlet of fourteen log houses, all of them empty. The 
countless tin cans that cover the ground in every direction are 
proof that human beings once lived there. We pass Hancock, 
a desolate town on the mountain side where it would seem that 
women could easily die of homesickness. 

Further on, there were once some strong snowsheds over 
the track. Where are they now? Look down the mountain 
side and you can see their splintered remains scattered far 
below. One day some "beautiful snow" came sliding down 
the mountain and those snowsheds were in its way. They got 
on to ride and were changed into kindling wood. 

Now we are above timber line and stone cabins take the 
place of log cabins. It is late summer but we feel the chill of 
last winter from the drifts of old snow around us, and the 
chill of the coming winter in the snow that falls even while the 
sun is shining. In front of us rises the lofty crest of the 
Continental divide. There is a low-high spot called a pass, 
11,626 feet high. Can our engine scale it ? It could but it need 
not, for a tunnel 1700 feet long pierces the mountain. When 
we emerge from it we are on the Pacific slope. A thousand 
feet below is the valley where our track runs, and, at our left 

[122] 



MOUNTAIN PASSES 

is a dizzy precipice. On a road blasted along that precipice 
our train runs at good speed, curving in and out, great rocks 
above and rocky chasms below. If our train should leave the 
track there would be silence for a few seconds, and then — ? 
But there is not much danger. Railroading over these moun- 
tains is safer by far than staging. We pass a side valley by 
making a long detour around it, and then another, and an- 
other. We look out over a far-reaching forest, a rolling sea 
of dark green whose waves roll mountain high. 

We leave the train at Pitkin. A few years before it held 
three or four thousand people. The streets were crowded and 
every house was full ; many lived in tents ; the hills swarmed 
with prospectors ; rich strikes were reported daily ; mills and 
smelters were erected ; large fortunes were put into the 
ground; everything was booming. But things did not "pan 
out" well. The fickle crowd moved on to Aspen, a newer camp 
over the mountains. Now Pitkin has but a small population. 
Such is the history of many a mining camp in the Rocky 
Mountains. 

Crossing a High Range. I was in the San Juan Mountains, 
taking the famous "Round the Circle" trip. I wanted to 
reach Telluride to see the finest waterfall in Colorado, as re- 
lated in chapter six. By stage it was forty-five miles from 
the railroad then, but right over the range by trail it was 
about seven miles. 

I left Summit, 11,500 feet, at three p. m. on foot and alone. 
I soon lost the trail but quickly regained it and before long I 
was above timber line. Far up on the mountain and near 
the top, as I supposed, I could see the trail. Some two miles 
ahead and in the trail I could see outlined against the sky what 
I took to be a man. I wondered why he remained so long at 
that one point. 

[123] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

I heard thunder but pressed on. The storm drew nearer; 
it was just over the crest. There was no rock large enough 
to hid under, so I hid in an ice cave under a huge drift of old 
snow, or ice. The melting water had formed an arch under 
the drift some forty feet by ten and about four feet high in 
the center. The roof of the arch was beautifully carved, while 
from many points, tiny streams of water fell on the rocks 
beneath. The thunder rolled heavily and cracked sharplj^ 
around me ; the rain fell in torrents ; the hail rattled on my 
icy roof and on the rocks, while fresh snow whitened some of 
the neighboring peaks. 

In half an hour I passed on, at first over sharp rocks, 
and then, on either side of the trail, up and down the moun- 
tain side, I saw such wondrous beds of flowers as I thought I 
had never seen before. There were acres of dense masses of 
color, one huge billowy bouquet of red, white, blue, yellow, 
purple and green, great scarlet bunches of "Indian paint 
brush," huge clusters of columbine with the largest flowers 
I had ever seen, wild geraniums, blue gentian, sunflowers, 
larkspurs, and many kinds whose names I did not know. I 
had seen many such floral displays on Alpine heights, but 
never a fliier one, and I went into raptures over it. How I 
wished that all my friends who love flowers, and I want no 
others, could share my joy. 

I turned a curve and on beyond sat a bear, on his 
haunches. It was what at a distance I had supposed was a 
man. He, or it, seemed to be waiting for me. At a safe dis- 
tance we faced each other about ten minutes. I knew my 
thoughts, and I would have given a penny for his. I was un- 
armed, except with my little book of promises, one of which 
was: "He shall make the beasts of the field to be at peace 
with thee." I concluded to return to the railroad and lay the 

[124] 



MOUNTAIN PASSES 

failure of my trip to the thunder storm, and I actually started 
back. Then I turned and went a few rods towards the bear; 
then I paused and meditated. He came a little way toward 
me. Then, to my great relief, he left the trail, went down 
through the flowers and behind some rocks, and I passed on 
triumphantly. Had I not stared him out of countenance? 

I was now looking down upon the famous Red Mountain, 
or Mountains, for there are several of them. They were just 
across the valley out of which I had come. Their stony slopes 
were all of a most brilliant red, a result of some chemical 
change in rocks that were once white. As I looked down upon 
those fiery flaming mountains which no painter's brush could 
exaggerate, and off to the sharp peaks and ranges beyond, 
rising tier above tier until the most distant ones seemed to 
support the horizon, my soul was filled to overflowing with 
the joy of magniflcent mountain scenery. Just then I met a 
train of burros and my soul overflowed to their wearily plod- 
ding driver. 

"That view" I exclaimed with a wave of my hand, "is 
the finest in the Rocky Mountains. ' ' 

' ' Ugh ? ' ' said he, ' ' what do you mean ? ' ' 

"Oh," said I, "how far is it to Telluride?" for I per- 
ceived that he had no relish for scenery. 

' ' 'Bout twelve miles, ' ' was his answer. 

I went on a few rods and asked another burro driver. 
' ' Oh, I reckon it is six miles. ' ' Another thought it was four, 
and another nine miles. Before I reached Telluride I concluded 
they were all right, and one might call it any number of 
miles he pleased, for miles utterly failed to express the distance. 

When I thought I had reached the summit a long upward 
line of trail stretched out before me. Below me, among grassy 
slopes and limitless beds of flowers, I saw many beautiful little 

[125] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

lakes. At one point I counted seven. Further on I passed 
two small icy-cold lakes nestling close together. Their little 
waves seemed to dash against nothing but rocks and huge 
snowdrifts, yet flowers were blooming even on their borders. 
With merry ripples the little crystal stream flowed from one 
lake to the other, and then down over the rocks on its long 
journey through flowery fields, Alpine valleys, dark forests, 
lonely glens and deep canons ; then through cactus plains and 
claye}^ deserts to the far-off mysterious Grand Canon of the 
Colorado River, and then to the great Pacific. Again I thought 
I was near the summit, and again I saw the trail stretching 
far above and reaching the real summit through an immense 
drift. Ophir Pass 13,500 feet high, is one of the highest in 
Colorado. 

And what a view that was ! How can my pen describe it ? 
Such interminable ranges ! The Quartzite Group, the Needles, 
San Miguel Mountains, Uncompaghre Mountains, Bear River 
Mountains, LaPlata Mountains — all were in sight. Such 
gorges, such sheer walls of rock, such sharp and ragged peaks, 
such gigantic castles and embattled cliffs, such a mingling of 
the sublime and the beautiful, such profound depths beneath 
and such long drawn out distances to the farthest peaks, such 
color of rock and sky, snow and water, forests and fiowers ! 

I met about 150 burros patiently plodding along with 
their heavy loads of 200 pounds each. Surely they must have 
wire nerves and steel muscles to cross that range twice a day, 
carrying coal one way and ore the other. Since the railroad 
was built to Telluride they have ceased that work and that is 
now a lonely trail. 

I look down now into a deep valley which my eye fol- 
lows far out to the plains of south-western Colorado. That 
serpentine stream sparkling in the sun is the San Miguel 

[126] 



MOUNTAIN PASSES 

River and I must let myself down a mile in depth to reach it 
and Telluride. Down I go over fields of rock, along the edge 
of the steep precipices, down to Savage River with its great 
walls of rock and snow, where avalanches thunder through 
winter days, down into the timber again, and through more 
wondrous beds and fields of flowers, past famous mines and 
prospect holes, down along, or in sight of different streams, 
that pour down from great drifts in rock-walled basins and 
unite to form a larger stream, that goes thundering over count- 
less cascades, one long tremendous drift of white, down and 
down I go over the zigzag of an endless W trail, down through 
four thousand feet of eruptive rock, and through hundreds of 
feet of pudding stone and stratified rock. When I reach the 
valley I am 8600 feet above sea level. See chapter six for a 
description of the waterfall that I found in that valley. 

A Stage Ride over a Pass. We left Leadville at 6 a. m. 
on an old-fashioned Concord coach drawn by four horses, 
bound for Aspen, sixty miles away, over the great backbone 
of the continent, over that snow-capped rocky wall in the west 
that rises a mile into the air above a valley which itself is 
nearly two miles above tide level. 

There are eleven passengers and the coach is top-heavy 
with baggage, mail and express matter. 

"You. will need to drive carefully," whispered the agent 
to the driver. ''I should think so," was the reply. I sat by 
the driver and my first question was : ' ' How long have you 
been on the road ? ' ' 

"Oh," said he. "I'm only a green hand taking the place 
of a lame-armed driver." 

This was not reassuring. A few miles down the valley I 
could see the spot where the much lamented home missionary 
superintendent, Rev. J. W. Pickett, was instantly killed six 

[127] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

years before by the overturning of a coacli. I Avas now doing 
his work and had the seat on the coach that he had when he 
was killed. 

Eighteen miles and we are at Twin Lakes, where in 1877, 
before the railroads had penetrated the mountains, a dozen of 
us had spent a delightful week. We had then wondered what 
there was up and beyond those great mountains, in that vast 
and largely unexplored and unsettled region that stretched on 
hundreds of miles to and into Utah. Now we are to see. We 
change horses, stage, and driver and begin the long half day's 
climb. 

Past the Lake Creek Falls, Twin Peaks and Mount Elbert, 
past great bare domes of rock, past an occasional cluster of 
log cabins with accommodations for man and mule, past 
crystal streams that flow in from wild gorges, or leap over rocky 
walls in white cascades, past, sometimes in almost impassable 
places, the slowly moving double freight wagons drawn by from 
four to eight mules, along the roaring stream that gradually, 
grows smaller, over corduroy roads that span, now a marshy 
spot and now a great ledge of rock, through beautiful forests 
of evergreens and through desolate stretches of dead and fallen 
timber, on and on, up and up we go. 

The thunder rolls its deep base below us. The air grows 
cooler and we put on our overcoats. We come to snow and see 
the creek flowing from under a great snowdrift. We enter an 
immense amphitheatre up whose steep walls stretch great beds 
of snow. We must in some way climb those walls. The road 
winds back and forth. We walk now while the stage with six 
horses comes slowly behind with frequent stops. We are near 
timber line, A^et we find trees of immeiise size. Now we are 
above timber line, and now at the summit of Independence 
Pass, 12,540 feet high, one of the highest on the continent. 

[128] 



MOUNTAIN PASSES 

Great drifts of snow are around us. Where the ground is 
bare, it is full of ice-water, but is white with beautiful flowers 
that bloom where the snow lay thick a week before, perhaps the 
day before. Sometimes those flowers actually grow through 
the old snow at the thin edge of drifts. Close by us is a cabin 
in whose front yard lies, on July 14, a huge snowdrift. The 
owner was once offered $40,000 for the prospect hole in his 
back yard. He could get nothing now. 

On this pass the snow was so deep in winter that a man 
could step over the telegraph wire. When it began to melt the 
going was simply awful. But, with occasional blockades 
during some great storm, the freight teams and stages kept 
crossing, for on beyond was a great booming camp whose sup- 
plies must all go over that pass. The dead mules and horses 
the broken wagons and sleds, that line the road, show at what 
cost the traffic was carried on. The little burros, or "Rocky 
Mountain elevators, ' ' carry out heavy loads of ore and bring in 
groceries and other supplies. They used to do that, but now 
that pass is little used since a railroad was built to those camps 
over the range, by a longer but easier route. 

At the summit we re-enter the stage, but in a few minutes 
we regret it, for a sharp curve brings us to the edge of a preci- 
pice where we look down 500 feet and see the road below us. 
A freight wagon just ahead comes to a stop. "Draw up close 
to the bank," shouts our driver, "and I think I can pass you 
on the outside. ' ' He does it, while the passengers tremble and 
one of them at least is ready to spring out if the stage goes 
ever. The outer wheels crumble the dirt over the edge, but we 
pass in safety, and now the six horses go galloping down the 
winding road. Below us we see the dead mules and splintered 
wagon that went over that precipice a few weeks before. The 
wagon was loaded with glass. The lady passenger looks very 

[129] 



MY MOUNTAINS 



steadily at the bank on the inside of the road. The flowers are 
more beautiful on that side ! We all breathe more freely when 
we reach the valley floor. 

We drive through the deserted streets of Independence. 
Three years before it was filled with a surging tide of gold- 
seekers. Now only two or three buildings are occupied, and 
they by saloons. One man held the fort all alone one winter, 
and held all the town offices also. 

Now on the Pacific slope we plunge down into wild gorges. 
The Roaring Fork becomes rapidly a larger stream. The 
canon walls close in upon us. Great rocks, as large as houses, 
line the roadside, or seem ready to fall from overhanging 
mountains. The mountains pierce the sky. Foaming streams 
leap from mountain tops and pierce the valley. Is that a snow- 
drift or a white cascade far up in that forest? It may be 
either. Truly we are in heart of the Rockies. How wild, how 
grand, how beautiful, how wonderful it all is ! 

In less than twenty miles we descend nearly 5000 feet, and 
probably three-fourths of that in ten miles. As we go lower 
the vegetation increases. One can reach out from the stage 
and pluck beautiful wild roses. Little garden patches begin 
to appear. The stream is a river now, but it is less like a wild 
beast and it takes an occasional rest by gliding quietly between 
grassy banks. 

At seven o'clock, covered with dust, we reach Aspen. The 
town is beautifully located on a level plain two miles long and 
a mile wide, nearly surrounded by steep mountains. By day 
and by night can be heard the roar of a large stream that comes 
dashing down from a mountain just opposite the town. 

A few years before Rev. E. A. Paddock, then of Leadville, 
made the sixty mile trip from Leadville to Aspen on foot in 

[130] 



n 



MOUNTAIN PASSES 

one day, and made it twelve times, started a church, and put 
up a building, largely with his own hands and credit. 

A day and two evenings of home missionary work and I 
started back. A rain has settled the dust and at first the ride 
is delightful. The stage carries two swine, a dead one strapped 
on behind, and a live one that sits inside and puffs smoke in our 
faces. When told that a man may have a right to smoke but 
he has no right to make others smoke or be smoked, he grunts 
and exchanges his pipe for a cigar. 

We reach the summit and go swiftly down the rough road 
on the Atlantic side. Two ministers sit on the back seat. 
Suddenly the front wheels drop a foot or more, because of the 
absence of a log in the corduroy road, and the ministers very 
promptly rise to their feet. The wheels are quickly jerked 
up and the ministers resume their seat, very promptly and 
solidly. Up they rise again in unison and sit down amid 
laughter. Up again and down again. The driver laughs 
quietly and drives faster. 

"It seems to me," said one of the ministers, ''that this 
(up again) is a (down) regular Episcopal service." 

' ' How do the stage wheels stand such rough usage ? ' ' said 
one. 

' ' I don 't know, ' ' was the reply, ' ' but I think that we have 
been standing a good deal." 

''Well," said minister number one, "I never supposed 
that I could become so theatrical and cut up such antics on 
the stage. ' ' These things may not sound funny to my readers, 
but they were very funny to our passengers. Did you ever 
notice how a carload or stage load of people, when in just the 
right mood, will burst into roars of laughter at little witticisms 
that would pass unnoticed at other times ? We laugh until we 

[131] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

cry as we go bouncing and bumping over stones and logs dowi 
that steep mountain road. 

After dinner it begins to rain. We are in an open stage 
with no umbrellas. Overcoats are soon wet through. It rains 
for hours. We have all stopped laughing. The thunder 
reverberates grandly among the mountains. Above timber 
line fresh snow is falling. The mountains around Leadville 
are white with snow. 

As we pass Twin Lakes a rainbow of great beauty rests, 
one end on the upper Lake and one on the forest, the facsimile 
of the one which, eight years before, had so delighted our 
camping party at that same spot one Sunday night. 

When we reach the railroad at Granite I am so chilled 
through that I can hardly walk straight. I board the train 
at dark and sit close to the hot stove until it scorches me. The 
rain beats against the windows, but what care I ? I curl up in 
the seat and sleep as the train speeds down the Arkansas, 
through the Royal Gorge, past Canon City, Pueblo, Colorado 
Springs and Palmer Lake to Denver. 

Absent from home four days, a day and a night on the 
cars for 410 miles, two days on the stage for 120 miles, three 
times across the Continental Divide and back, ranging up 
and down from 5000 feet to 12,540 feet — this trip was one 
incident in a home-missionary superintendent's life in Colo- 
rado in the eighties of last century. 



[132] 



CHAPTER XI 
MOUNTAIN FORESTS AND FLOWERS 

FROM a safe road or trail I have looked into the forests of 
Southern California, of Florida and of Alaska, and I have 
not been tempted to examine them more closely. In fact they 
are often impenetrable, or nearly so. If one gets off the trail 
he finds himself, according to location, in a dense jungle of logs, 
rocks, vines, thorny bushes, chapparal, trees, morasses, pools, 
swamps and swails, and is liable to meet venomous snakes, 
alligators, and bears. 

John Muir, intrepid explorer of forests, tells of his experi- 
ences in Florida swamps, and of exploring the chapparal of 
Southern California by walking or crawling through the 
tunnel-like paths frequented by wild beasts and rattlesnakes, 
and of finding one of the latter between his feet. 

Most people do not care for such forests. I do not myself, 
except to look at them from a distance. Scientific enthusiasm 
for birds or snakes, for bears or alligators, or for rare vege- 
able forms, may properly send a scientist into such forests, 
and John Muir was a scientific botanist and glaciologist, as 
well as nature lover. But most of us who are nature lovers 
do not care for climbing peaks that are extra-hazardous, or for 
threading jungles or wading swamps. 

The forests that I delight in, those that grow on my 
mountains, are not of that order, nor, I imagine, were the for- 
ests of the central Sierras, where Muir spent so many -happy 
summers. They are of an open nature, largely clean of under- 

[^33] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

brush and of fallen timber, free of swamps and swails and 
dangerous sink-holes. They abound in flowery glades and 
grassy parks and in good camping places. One can ride 
through them to and fro on horseback. Their aspect is inviting 
so that one is drawn on and on, up and down hill and through 
charming valleys. The trees do not monopolize all the space. 
They are scattered about more like the maple sugar bushes of 
our eastern homes. There are rocks, of course, steep precipices, 
great boulders, occasional thickets that one may not care to 
enter, dry spots, wet spots, burnt-over spots, barren spots, but 
take them as a whole, they are explorable ; their beauties are 
get-atable and enjoyable. 

Take for example the mountains and forests in the Pike's 
Peak region. I mention them because so many have seen them. 
Like them are those in the Estes Park region and other park 
regions of Colorado. 

I am not a tree expert but I greatly admire the graceful, 
symmetrical conifers as I look down upon them from heights 
above them. And I also admire the view from some lofty 
height, of vast stretches of evergreen forests, as they stretch 
out for miles and miles over hills and valleys, like an irregular 
ocean of green waves. 

In climbing some high mountain or crossing some high 
pass it is interesting to note the changing colors of trees and 
shrubbery, growing less green the higher one goes up, in May 
or June, and, among the aspens especially growing more yellow 
or orange or red as the frosts, night by night, creep slowly 
down the mountain side or valley. One can sometimes pick 
wild strawberries and then climb up a few thousand feet and 
find strawberries just in blossom. 

The conifers grow in all imaginable places. Wherever 
one goes in Colorado he is surprised to see trees growing out of 

[134] 



MOUNTAIN FORESTS AND FLOWERS 

the great rocks with no sign of any soil around them. The 
roots strike down into rock crevices and probably reach mois- 
ture somewhere. On that moisture and on the decomposing 
granite, and on the sunlight and air, and perhaps also on the 
scenery, they thrive and grow. But if one undertakes to 
transplant them, taking them out of their environment and 
putting them in good soil and carefully tending them, they are 
almost sure to die. 

The subject of trees reminds me of the Petrified Forests in 
Arizona. I stopped over twenty-four hours at Adamana on 
the Santa Fe road in Arizona to see them. There are several 
of the forests. The two that I visited cover about 3000 acres. 
They are in a desert region. Some of the trees are from one 
to two hundred feet in length and up to five or six feet in 
diameter. They are all prostrate, some only partially exposed 
from the soil. They are nearly all broken into sections, and 
many are broken into smaller pieces of all sizes. They are all 
quartz, which replaced the woody fiber, and the colorings are 
wonderful, red, white, yellow, green, gray, etc. According to 
color chiefly they are called chalcedony, jasper, carnelian, 
onyx, sardonyx, agate, etc. Large sections of the ground are 
actually covered with millions of beautiful specimens. One 
can shut his eyes and reach out and not fail of picking up 
specimens worth keeping. Each visitor is allowed to take 
eight pounds. They did not weigh what I took but guessed 
at it. One large unbroken log stretches across a gully as a 
bridge. Its ends are buried in the bank on either side. 

John Muir wrote me in 1912 that he spent a year in the 
petrified forests around Adamana and made many notes, but 
had not as yet found time to write anything about them for 
publication. He was then trying to write out his notes on 
South America and Africa, where he said he had had a 

[135] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

''glorious time." Would that we might have had those two 
more books from his facile pen ! 

Floiuers. On lofty mountains, above timber line, up 
where the trees cannot grow, up near and among the great 
fields of snow, I have seen myriads of tiny little flowers. They 
were very small but there were so many of them that they 
made the ground look blue, or white, or red ("red, white and 
blue") . They were God's little things of beauty, growing and 
blossoming up there in the midst of his great and awful 
mountains. And I have often noticed how, in the wildest and 
ruggedest and grandest places in the mountains, we find the 
little flowers that cause thoughts of beauty, gentleness, and 
humility to spring up in our minds alongside our thoughts of 
grandeur, sublimity and overwhelming power. 

In the San Juan Mountains I have seen acres and acres 
of flowers, so abundant they seem like great fields and floods of 
color pouring through the valleys and sweeping up the moun- 
tain slopes, while above them rose the gigantic precipices, 
seamed and ragged and awful in their grandeur. The towering 
cliffs that had stood there for ages frowned gloomily down 
upon the sweet and innocent flowers of a day, but the flowers 
looked up at the cliffs and smiled. And when the cliffs hurled 
a rock, or a shower of rocks, down to crush the flowers, the 
flowers only exhaled sweet odors of forgiveness from their 
crushed petals. 

Above timber line on Mount Lincoln I have trod on dense 
masses of color. Do you ask why I trod on the beautiful 
flowers, an act for which I would be arrested if I did it in a 
city park? It was because I could not step without stepping 
on flowers, for they were all about me. No sign forbade my 
picking them or told me to keep off the grass. I imagined that 
the flowers just wanted to be picked by some human hand 

[136] 



i 



MOUNTAIN FORESTS AND FLOWERS 

and be admired by human eyes, yea, even to be pressed by the 
scle of a human foot, so rare a thmg was it for them to see a 
human being*. Nature had spread there a beautiful carpet of 
rarest texture and wonderful color in honor of those who 
took the pains to climb to those lofty domes of her earthly 
temples. It was like walking- through the reception rooms of 
a royal palace and being treated as a royal guest. I have faded 
flowers in my diary for 1878 that I picked within six feet of 
the ragged summit of that mountain, up where the snow abides 
the year around, where awful storms rage, and where the 
lightning frequently strikes, breaking rocks but not harming 
the flowers. The flowers blossom in the secret places of the 
Most High ; they abide under the shadow of their Almighty 
Maker. 

I have often seen white flowers growing out of the ice- 
water that came from the melting snow, and out of the ground 
that was covered with old snow a day or two before, and even 
pushing their way up through the edge of old snowdrifts, 
Down under the snow they had been getting ready, their roots 
quivering with life and vitality, impatient of delay, and just 
as soon as the snow is gone, or almost gone, in June or July or 
later, just as soon as they feel the influence of the summer sun, 
they burst out of the ground and bloom in the midst of snow 
and ice. Out of the very snow their pure white blossoms look 
up and confess the sunshine and rejoice in it. 

And it is astonishing what a variety of flowers we find in 
the mountains, flowers which perhaps one has never seen or 
heard of before. I took an early Sunday morning walk for 
worship in Glen Park before most of the campers were up. I 
picked wild flowers and returned from my half mile walk down 
the valley with a bouquet of nearly sixty varieties of flowers. 

Some kinds are rare ; other kinds bloom in untold mil- 

[^37] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

lions. Among- the scattered trees on a hillside in the Elk 
Mountains I found vast numbers of the columbine, Colorado's 
glorious state flower. My wife and I picked huge armfuls, but 
seemingly made no impression on that columbine flower bed. 
If they had been near a tourist resort we would have been 
satisfled with small bouquets. There were once vast numbers 
around Manitou but they have become almost extinct there 
through ruthless picking of them. 

Millions of beautiful flowers grow and bloom in out of the 
way places where human eyes never see them. The poet says 
that ' ' they are born to blush unseen and waste their fragrance 
on the desert air." But I do not agree with the poet. They 
are not unseen. Their Maker sees them, and I believe He 
enjoys the beauty He creates. The birds see them, and who 
knows but that the birds enjoy them, and perhaps their songs 
of gladness are all the sweeter, as ours should be because of 
the flowers they see and whose odors they inhale. The sweet- 
ness of the flowers is not wasted on the desert air. The bees 
gather much of it and bring it to us. Honej^ is the condensed 
sweetness of myriads of flowers. And if a million flowers that 
bloom on the mountain side, or on the prairie, add only a 
little to the fresh fragrance of the mountain air, or the prairie 
zephyr, as it enters the window of the sick chamber and cools 
the fevered brow of the invalid, then their sweetness is not 
wasted. 

If a million flowers blooming in some mountain valley, 
give a moment's delight to some passing traveler, as they often 
have to me, as he catches sight of them from the car window, 
then their beauty is not wasted. 

And if a little child, straying into some lovel}^ spot, flnds a 
bed of wild flowers and explains : ' ' Oh, how pretty ; aren 't they 

[138] 



MOUNTAIN FORESTS AND FLOWERS 

lovely ! ' ' and then picks a bunch of them to take to his mother 
as a token of love, then those flowers have not bloomed in vain. 

The fields with brilliant flowers are bright, 

Of every hue and shade ; 
Interpret they the sun's white light, 

And then they meekly fade, 
And others haste to take their place, 

A long and bright procession; 
Up towards the sun they turn their face, 

And that is their confession. 



1 339] 



CHAPTER XII 
CAVES, MINES AND TUNNELS 

TTT^HEN we speak of going into the mountains we gen- 
V V erally mean going into their valleys, or going in among 
the mountains. We do not often have on our program the 
actual going inside of a mountain. When we do, we use either 
a passage made by man or one made by nature, a tunnel or 
mine or cave. 

Caves. When I was a boy in northern New York I went 
alone one day and explored a cave about a mile from my 
father's house. It was where a good-sized creek ran into the 
rocks and under a big hill and came out on the other side. It 
was a small cave but it gave me a taste for exploring caves 
that led to the discovery of a fine cave near a great tourist 
resort in Colorado. One of the present owners told me that 
50,000 people each year pay a dollar each to be shown through 
that cave. It happened in this way.* 

From 1876 to 1881 I was pastor of a church at Colorado 
Springs. The great mountains were so near, they often 
seemed, seen sideways, like a great cloud in the west. Pike's 
Peak rose a mile and a half above us and nearly three miles 
above the sea. Among the foothills were wonderful canons, 
waterfalls, parks and crystal beds. In plain sight, though sev- 
eral miles away, were the towering red rocks of the Garden 
of the Gods. A few miles north were the wierd and fantastic 
rocks of Monument Park. 



See chapter IX of Crystals and Gold. 
[140] 



CAVES, MINES AND TUNNELS 

I occasionally took my Sundayschool boys, and sometimes 
the girls, on holiday trips among the rocks and hills. Finally 
I organized the boys into an exploring society, whose object 
was to camp out, explore the mountains, and collect specimens. 
Our first trip after the society was organized was a great 
success. 

It was five miles to Manitou, the great summer resort of 
Colorado. Close to Manitou is Williams Canon, which a small 
stream has cut hundreds of feet in depth through the limestone 
rock. Near the Narrows was a large fissure in the rock, called 
a cave. I had been in it with a friend and I took the boys, 
after they were organized, to visit it and to explore Williams 
Canon. My buggy was full of boys, while some walked the 
five miles and some went horseback. 

I left my horse and buggy at the mouth of the canon and 
then we all walked up to the Narrows. There we found a half 
drunken man who demanded fifty cents each for seeing the 
cave or fissure. I think he had no right to do so, but I said to 
him : ' ' That is too much. Can you not let the boys in at half 
price?" "No," he replied, "you must each one pay fifty cents 
or you cannot go in." I had not expected any charge at all, 
so I turned to the boys and said : ' ' Boys, we will go on up the 
canon and discover our own cave, ' ' and we did, discovering the 
finest cave in Colorado, the other man's business being spoiled 
as one result. 

The boys were full of the spirit of exploring, and as we 
passed slowly up the canon I occasionally sent a squad of two 
or three boys, under the command of one of the officers of the 
society, to explore some opening that could be seen from below. 
Of course those openings had been often examined and we 
found no cave by means of them, though one of them opened 
back quite a distance into the rock. Finally John and George 

[MI] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

Pickett climbed up into a very steep gorge that opened up into 
and through the canon wall, and that was covered by a natural 
stone bridge, which was the top and edge of the canon wall. 
They called back to us that they had found a hole in the rock. 
The rest of us climbed to the spot. It was a very difficult 
place to reach, which explains why nobody had found the 
cave before. We could look down through the sort of sloping 
tunnel into the depths of the canon. 

As soon as I reached the spot I felt a current of air coming 
out of the hole which the boys had found, and that convinced 
me that there must be large cavities inside. There was an 
opening just large enough for us to crawl through on our 
hands and knees. Lighting our candles I led the way and the 
boys followed in single file. I was thus the first person to 
enter the cave and the boys and I mutually shared the honor 
of its discovery. 

As I proceeded, I looked carefully for the tracks of wild 
beasts, but I found none, and I never found any evidence that 
the cave had ever been inhabited by any animals except rats 
and bats. 

We soon came to a large room with beautiful grottoes 
around it that were shut off by stony curtains, through whose 
thin folds of stalactitic rock the light of our candles was easily 
seen. Fine stalactites were hanging from the roof. Beyond 
that room was a larger one with many stalactites, and further 
on was a still larger room that was nearly fifty feet high. On 
one side of it there was what seemed to be the cascade of a 
river that had suddenly frozen. It was a mass of stalactite 
rock that had been slowly deposited there from the dripping 
water. Barely visible in the gloomy vault above was a huge 
stalactite several feet in length. At the right was another 
room, about fifty feet long, that led to the edge of a deep well. 

[142] 



CAVES, MINES AND TUNNELS 

These rooms were but the ante-chambers of a great Inany 
others, some eighty in all, most of which were discovered later 
by other persons. Many of them were covered above by 
stalactites, below by stalagmites, and on their sides by the 
curiously twisted helictites. Some rooms were covered with a 
frost-work of aragonite that sparkled like myriads of glittering 
diamonds. 

With grateful hearts to the Maker of all things for the 
privilege of discovering what He had been so many ages in 
making, I gathered the boys around me and asked them to keep 
our discovery a secret for a few days, which they faithfully 
did. Then we crawled out and clambered to the bottom of the 
canon, well laden with specimens. I felt much relieved when I 
got that crowd of boys, eight in all, safely down out of that 
dangerous gorge and out from under its overhanging rocks. 
We ate our lunch in a deserted cabin, and we showed how 
hungry boys can get in discovering famous caves. Fearing 
lest the man down the canon should discover our secret, we 
climbed the canon wall and went out another way. 

We named our cave, at my suggestion, Pickett's Cave, 
after the father of the two boys, who found the opening that 
led to the cave. He was a consecrated and brave home mission- 
ary superintendent, who had been instantly killed a few 
months before by the overturning of a stage coach while 
crossing the range near Leadville in a snow storm. 

The cave was found to be on private property. The first 
man who took hold of it lost money. Then other parties bought 
it, made a new opening and discovered many more rooms, fixed 
it up thoroughly, changed its name to Cave of the Winds, and 
for about forty years have reaped a rich financial harvest from 
it. The boys and myself were permitted to add another to the 
many attractions of that wonderful region at the foot of Pike's 

[143] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

Peak. Neither they nor I ever got any money out of our dis- 
covery. We discovered it June twenty-sixth, 1880. 

Fourteen years later I went through Wind Cave in the 
Black Hills, in South Dakota, a very extensive cave, discovered 
later than ours was. It is a series of huge crevices, in which 
very few, if any, stalactites are found, but which contains 
very beautiful lime geodes, box-work, popcorn, and other 
curious formations. 

Mines. As to coal mines, I have had chances to go down 
into them and explore them, but they do not appeal to me. I 
know how coal looks and how common rocks look, and I am not 
curious to gaze on their black gloom in the mine. I am truly 
sorry for the men who have to spend their days there and who 
run such great risks to get our coal for us. I read of too many 
cave-ins, rock falls and fire-damp explosions to begrudge coal- 
miners high wages and short hours. I am not enough of a 
geologist to care to study that science in such gloomy and 
dangerous places. And so I decline with thanks all invitations 
to go down the shaft. 

As to gold and silver mines, they are somewhat different. 
I have never hunted for them, yet when roaming through the 
mountains I keep my eyes open for any unusual appearance of 
the rocks, and I would not object to stumbling upon a good 
paying mine if I could do so legitimately, and not let it inter- 
fere with more important work. Yet I feel very much as Rev. 
Mr, Pickett did when he was on a missionary trip in the 
Black Hills and was one day walking from one mining camp 
to another. He picked up a piece of rock that looked as though 
it might contain rich ore. He began to speculate in his mind 
on what he would do if he found a rich mine. Then he sud- 
denly checked himself, straightened up and threw the piece 

[144] 



of rock from him as far as lie could, saying : ' ' That is not my 
business. ' ' 

If I am to find a mine I would prefer to have it as simple 
and as easy to work as the one my son found when he picked 
up a fair nugget of gold, or a pebble with pieces of gold in it, 
in the street of Custer, something that many old prospectors 
had been unable to find. 

Once when walking between two mining camps in the 
Elk Mountains I found a very rich silver mine, rich while 
it lasted, the ore running some $25,000 or more to the ton. 
Being thirsty I stooped over a mountain rivulet to drink and 
on the bottom of the stream lay two shining silver dollars — 
my rich silver mine. They had evidently slipped from the 
pocket of some thirsty traveler who had preceded me. 

Yet while I do not care very much for mines, or for com- 
mon ore that is said to contain gold and silver, I do feel a 
deep debt of gratitude to the toiling prospectors and miners 
who have dug and blasted so many prospect holes and deep 
mines, and who have made so many good trails and roads, and 
even railroads, that help me in making my way to difficult 
places. I have often found beautiful crystals and valuable 
speciments on the dumps of their prospect holes and mines. 
They were thro^\^l out and thrown away as worthless refuse 
of no value to them. But I saw value in them as mineral speci- 
mens, and sometimes I got money value out of them. 

Sometimes, in my imagination, I find a rich gold mine, 
one that is surprisingly rich, rich from the grass roots, and 
easily worked. It speedily brings me millions of dollars, or I 
soon sell out for millions. And then what fun I have in 
scattering generous checks around among poor relatives, 
among needy colleges, and to many other good causes, keeping 
my name secret of course, and thus investing largely in the 

[145] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

bank of the Kingdom. There is lots of fun in it all, and one's 
imagination is easily worked. But I am of the opinion that 
there is more fun in the real thing. 

As to tunnels, there are many of them on the railroads of 
Colorado, some long but most of them short. I have been 
through about all of them, and through Hoosic tunnel in Mas- 
sachusetts several times, but always on the cars, with car lights 
lighted and practically nothing to be seen out of the car win- 
dow but total darkness. I always breathe more freely when 
our train emerges into the blessed light of day. Near Manitou 
there are several tunnels. The best use I ever made of them 
was to sit or stand in the shade at one end on hot days and en- 
joy the cold breezes that are generally blowing through them. 



[146] 



CHAPTER XIII 
SNOW, ICE, AND CLACIERS 

MY near acquaintance with the mountains has for the 
most part been in the summer and autumn months. 
I can tell at first hand no such stories of snow falls and 
avalanches as can Enos A. Mills of the Colorado, or John Muir 
of the California mountains. I have often seen the desolation 
wrought by an avalanche but I never caught it in the act. I 
have seen places in the Elk or San Juan Mountains where it 
was said that the snow had been from thirty to sixty feet deep, 
but I was never on the spot to measure it. I have seen some 
quite good-sized evergreens that had been so bent over by the 
weight of snow that fell on them, their tops bowed to the 
ground. But before I reached them they had unloaded and 
were trying to assume an upright position. 

Of course I have seen from a distance long mountain 
ranges covered on their summits and on all their flanks with 
an unbroken mantle of white, a glorious sight, especially when 
the sun is shining upon them. And I have seen the huge fields 
and drifts of snow, sometimes miles in extent, that abide 
through all the summer months. They look like snowdrifts but 
some of them are great fields of ice, of glacial ice, remnants 
perhaps of old glaciers. Riding through the Canadian Rockies 
I have seen far above me on the mountain side great walls of 
ice that were slowly crawling down the valley, sometimes 
pushing out over the edge of a precipice, and ever and anon 

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MY MOUNTAINS 

hurling a part of itself on the rocks below. And from the 
steamboat in Alaskan waters I have seen those rivers of ice 
moving with great deliberation and almost unmeasurable 
slowness down to the ocean water. I could not perceive their 
movement but I knew that they were moving, for they are 
moving all the time. All the glaciers are connected with the 
mountains, except those that spread out over the plains, the 
Malaspina glaciers, on which forests sometimes grow. I had 
read much about glaciers, and had even given a lecture on 
them. But my opportunity to see one at close range did not 
come until the summer of 1898, when I was going to Oregon 
over the Canadian Pacific Railroad, through the Canadian 
Rockies. I have been to the Pacific coast on nearly all the 
trans-continental railroads and I unhesitatingly declare that 
the mountain views on the Canadian Pacific far exceed in 
beauty and grandeur those of any other railroad. The moun- 
tains are of the same sort as those of Glacier Park, rugged, 
abrupt, precipitous, full of surprises, abounding in lakes, 
rapids and waterfalls, in towering cliffs, in snow-fields and 
glaciers. 

I stopped off over Sunday and Monday at Glacier, a wild 
and romantic spot in the Selkirk Mountains. It is an ideal 
spot for the lover of mountains and of mountain climbing. 
The altitude is 4122 feet. The Illecillewaet River plunges and 
roars down the steep valley, white with glacier milk. A tribu- 
tary stream tumbles in a continuous cascade with a fall of 
some 1800 feet, down the mountain just across from the hotel. 
The valley is filled with the roar of mountain torrents. 
Across the valley to the left are the snow-covered Hermit 
Mountains. Up the valley to the right is a forest of firs over 
whose tops gleam the great white ice-fields and huge bulk of 
the largest glacier in all that region of glaciers. It rises miles 

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SNOW, ICE, AND GLACIERS 

away on the mountain tops. From where it appears in sight 
on the mountain brow it comes down a steep slope about 2500 
feet in descent. Its entire fall is about one mile. 

I was at Glacier forty-eight hours and in that time I had 
one of the richest feasts that my nature-loving soul ever en- 
joyed. My appetite for such things had been sharpened by a 
long absence from the mountains, and by the fact that I had 
been reading much about glaciers, but had never before seen 
one. So I brought to the royal feast the keenest of keen appe- 
tites. Every breath of the mountain air was like the taste of 
ambrosia. I was in for a glorious good time. 

Saturday night I had only time enough to make a pre- 
liminary plunge into the woods, to get my local bearings, and 
to sit on the hotel porch and scan with my eyes and field glass 
the dark fir forest, the wild crags and sky-piercing peaks, the 
swift white torrents and the snow white ice-fields. From my 
bedroom window I looked in the light of the full moon upon 
ghostly firs, the spectral waterfalls and the cloud-like ice-fields. 
I was lulled to sleep by the sound of tinkling rills, roaring cas- 
cades, and the swishing river. 

Before breakfast the next morning I walked through the 
woods, a mile and a half up the mountain stream, to the foot 
of the great Illecillewaet Glacier. I worshipped all the way 
and kept the Sabbath more truly, I thought, than did the tour- 
ists who were still asleep at the hotel. I crossed the path of 
an avalanche which years before had swept away a forest 
and strewn hundreds of trees over a valley far from the 
mountain side from whence they came. I passed among the 
lofty fir trees that were growing where the glacier had once 
been, and among the huge rocks that it had deposited. I left 
the firs and passed over a lengthy space where only low bushes 
had had time to grow since the glacier withdrew. Then I 

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MY MOUNTAINS 

passed over quite a space where the glacier had been so 
recently, there was no vegetation, only huge rocks and heaps of 
stones that the glacier had slowly brought from the mountains 
above and dropped at that spot. 

And then I came to a M^all, a huge mass, an upward 
stretching field, of ice, dingy and dirty without, but beautifully 
green within, as seen in the crevices and caves. From beneath 
it flowed a good-sized milky stream, the milky color being 
caused by the glacial flour, or finely ground rock. Down the 
sides were gliding rills of pure ice-Avater. Stones and piles of 
dirt, embedded in the ice or borne on its surface, were grad- 
ually nearing the end of their journey, a journey of a mile per- 
haps in space, but of very many years in time. What a new 
birth it must be to the ice, that has been moving perhaps one 
foot a day, when it turns into water and speeds away in the 
brook many miles in an hour ! 

On the under side of the glacier I saw tunnels of different 
sizes and lengths. They were of the same diameter and shape 
as the stones I saw at their upper ends. The stones were 
caught fast in the ground and the glacier had ploughed its way 
over and around them, or rather it had flowed around them 
without any breaking of the ice. The glacier observes the 
same law of motion that water does in flowing, the law of 
fluids in motion. 

On Monday morning, before four o'clock, I was on my 
way to the glacier again. I studied it for several hours, espe- 
cially its very well-defined lateral morraine, where I found 
beautiful Alpine flowers, as well as interesting icy and stony 
facts. 

Towards night on Sunday I walked a half mile to the snow 
sheds, climbed to their top, walked slowly back and forth 
on them, and feasted eyes and soul on one of the finest moun- 

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SNOW, ICE, AND GLACIERS 

tain views I ever beheld. To the south and north were snow- 
covered mountains and glacier-filled valleys. Near the great 
glacier Sir Donald, a very steep and craggy mountain, a sort 
of American Matterhorn, rose more than a mile above me. 
Peaks and ranges- were all about me. I was in a great amphi- 
theater of wonders, but straight above me was the blue sky, 
and in and over all was God, who filled my soul with peace in 
that glad vesper hour. 

" In 1896 my son, a high school student, and myself 
were in the San Juan looking for scenery and wild flowers. 
At every point where we had stopped on that trip we were just 
too late for the columbines. But at Red Mountain a miner 
said he had seen some above timber line on the trail over to 
Telluride. Very early the next morning we climbed that trail 
and found a great bed of magnificent columbines and secured 
an abundance of them for pressing. 

As I looked around and got my bearings I decided that 
that field of flowers was on the exact spot where, seven years 
before, I had found a great field of snow and ice, where I took 
refuge from a storm by crawling into an ice cave, and met a 
bear when I started on. (See chapter X) An unusually 
warm summer, or a succession of such summers, had melted the 
ice-field, and straightway from seeds or bulbs buried for years 
beneath that ice sprang up and bloomed the lovely columbines, 
great royal clusters of them. And that simple fact, observed 
far off in those Rocky Mountains, suggested to me a larger fact 
in the physical history of our world. During the Ice Age a 
vast sheet of ice, such as now covers Greenland, a mile or more 
thick in places, crept slowly down from the north. It covered 
Canada and New England, New York and many states to the 
west, including the region of the Great Lakes. That huge 
glacier, or ice sheet, cut, carved, prepared, and made fit for 

[151] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

human habitation our northern states. There came a long 
succession of warmer years, or centuries rather. The ice re- 
treated ; the torrents of melted ice still further prepared the 
land ; animal life came back and vegetation flourished again. 
Finally man came to claim his promised land — and here we 
are ! I have always greatly admired the following lines : 

THE VISION* 

By Calvin Dill Wilson 

Lo, the earth was a ball of flame ; and then, 

Said Doubt, It can never be home for men. 

When the dark was on the face of the deep, 

Said Fear, Life never can burst from sleep. 

When vaporous, heavy, and dense was air, 

'Twas fair Hope itself that was trembling there. 

Ne'er here can be path for a bird's swift wing; 

Here never of love will a woman sing ; 

No, never can life and beauty be 

'Midst these tall waves and this tumbling wild sea. 

But order and harvests and peace have come ; 

The grass grows green ; and man has found home. 

And still men shrink from the end of the scheme, 

And say higher hopes are only a dream. 

The lesson of chaos, on to this sod. 

Is trust, — for the dreamer of dreams is God. 

There are some small glaciers and some stubs of glaciers 
high up in the Colorado mountains, but if I should write about 
them I would have to tell what others have seen rather than 
what I have seen myself. 



Used by permission. 

[152] 



CHAPTER XIV 
HUNTING, FISHING, AND DIGGING CRYSTALS 

THE only use some people have for the mountains is to 
make of them a hunting ground where they can go and 
kill, for the mere fun of it, some of God's beautiful creatures, 
some of their own fellow-creatures. Verily they have their 
reward, such as it is, but oh it is so small compared with what 
they might get out of the mountains ! Sometimes they kill or 
maim each other, by mistake of course, a careless mistake. 
Two or three times in my mountain trips I have heard bullets 
whiz by very close to my head, from hunters' guns fired with 
criminal carelessness. 

As for the guns carried by myself, or by parties over 
which I had control, they were like Ireland's snakes — there 
were no guns. I always felt safer without them, even around 
rough mining camps. In this matter I am a loyal disciple of 
our great mountaineer, John Muir. He never burdened him- 
self with any firearms, and was always on good terms with all 
of God's creatures. He held all such were good for themselves 
if not good for him, and so he left the bear, the deer, the rattle- 
snake even, to the pursuit of their own happiness, as he wished 
to be left to his. 

I do not like to have in my camping party even an /'un- 
loaded" gun. That kind often goes off and kills somebody. 
As for wild beasts they are far more afraid of man than man 
is of them. There is practically no danger from such as we 
have in this country, unless one attacks them, or robs them of 

[153] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

their young. When I go camping in countries where there are 
lions and tigers, which I have no desire to do, I may change my 
practice. 

As to fishing, I admit that the case is somewhat different, 
and I have fished a little in the mountains, but not very much, 
for reasons given further on. M}^ fishing experiences are 
limited and I do not boast of them very much. For example, 
when our party camped for a week at Twin Lakes I went out 
with another member of the party on the upper lake in a boat 
one afternoon. We fished several hours and did not catch a 
fish, or even have a bite. On our return to camp we learned 
that some of our neighboring campers had been to a different 
part of the lake and hauled in about eighty large trout, some of 
which they kindly shared with us. That was fisherman's luck. 
Or was it fisherman's skill? Some of my readers may have 
known by experience what my feelings Avere. 

On that same trip we camped at the Hot Springs. Taking 
m.y pole the first night I wandered down the sw^ift mountain 
stream and found a deep quiet pool of very clear water just 
above a large boulder. The water was so clear, I could see a 
dozen or more good-sized trout swimming around on the bot- 
tom. As I let my hook and bait down in front of their noses 
I could see the whole process of their getting caught, smelling 
of the bait, suspiciously backing off or darting away, coming 
forward again, making a quick dash for the bait, starting off 
with it, then being snatched up and out and landed at my feet. 
It was very interesting to watch their maneuvers. 

Going up stream the next day to a trout lake where fish 
were abundant our guide readily caught several large trout 
out of the stream. He put them in a hollow stump to keep 
them safe until we should return in the afternoon. When we 
returned they were gone. A bear had evidently put them in a 

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HUNTING, FISHING, AND DIGGING CRYSTALS 

safer place. When I was resting for a week at Cascade Canon 
in 1884 I lazily fished one afternoon in a boiling pool of water 
jnst below a big rock. I conld see nothing in the water but 
there was evidently just one trout there that repeatedly nib- 
bled at my hook but persistently refused to commit himself 
to it. As darkness came on, I left an appointment with him 
to see him early the next morning. Before breakfast I dropped 
my hook again into that pool. It was quickly seized by the 
speckled beauty and I had it for breakfast, a delicious m.orsel. 
It was a case of a ' ' solitary fisherman ' ' catching a solitary fish. 
When we were camping at Glen Park, my boy, while lying 
on the bank of a small stream, several times caught trout large 
enough to eat. Locating a fish under the sod or under a root 
or a stone, he would slowly slip his hand under it and then 
quickly seize it. A few years later he and I were in the Black 
Hills. At Spearfish we fished in the Spearfish river, a large 
and swift torrent of water that flows through the town. He 
caught some nice trout, which we had for breakfast at the 
hotel, much to the disgust of a foreigner who saw us eating 
them and demanded of the waiter why he couldn't have some 
too. My boy caught one very big trout but failed to keep 
him after catching him three times. He pulled him out of the 
water so quickly that the fish landed in a small tree and got 
free from the hook. He fell to the ground where my son 
grabbed him in his hands (second catch), but the slippery 
thing wriggled out of his hands and flopped into the river. 
He jumped after him into shallow water ■ — if he had jumped 
a little further the swift current would have swept him away — ■ 
and grabbed the fish again (third catch), but again the fish 
escaped from him. I shall never forget the expression on my 
son's face, but he was not a swearing boy! 

[155] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

My special interest in birds did not develop until after 
most of my mountain trips, so I have not many bird stories 
to tell. The most interesting one was at Seven Falls in 
Cheyenne Canon. I was there alone and for a long time I sat 
quietly beside the stream, watching the tumbling waters. Just 
at the right of the lower fall, as I faced it, there was a depres- 
sion in the rock which was partly covered by projecting rock. 
I happened to be looking at that shaded spot when I saw two or 
three white spots suddenly appear and then quickly disappear. 
After a few moments the spots again appeared and then 
disappeared. It was a puzzle to me. I kept watching to see 
if I could solve the puzzle. Finally I saw a bird fly from the 
creek to that place and put something into those white spots. 
The spots were the wide open mouths of two or three young 
birds. It was a nest of that most interesting of mountain birds, 
the water ouzel. John Muir in his Mountains of California has 
an exceedingly interesting chapter about that bird and its 
habits. Its habitat is mountain streams and waterfalls and it 
often builds its nest near a waterfall, where it is kept moist by 
the unceasing spray. Having read Muir's book I was greatly 
interested in finding one of the nests in that place with little 
ouzels in it. It was a place visited by many thousands of 
tourists every summer. The last time I was there the nest 
had disappeared. Perhaps some human animal had ruthlessly 
broken it up. 

In another place I saw a large bird, a red-winged black- 
bird I think, standing on the top-most boughs of a tall dead 
tree. The bird was stretching its neck repeatedly right up into 
empty space, apparently striking its head at nothing. That 
too was a puzzle which I must solve, and so I brought my glass 
to bear on the bird and then I saw. what my bare eyes had not 
been able to see, a spider's web stretched from twig to twig, 

[156] 



HUNTING, FISHING, AND DIGGING CRYSTALS 

just above the bird. He was simply picking out from the web 
the dainty morsels of flies and other insects that had been 
caught there. He was robbing the spider that built the nest, 
but — well what do men do sometimes ? 

One day I saw a robin hanging head downwards from 
one of the lower limbs of a tree. He had been carrying a 
string to weave into his nest, but the string had caught on the 
limb and his legs had become so entangled in the string that 
he could not escape. He was vainly struggling for life and 
liberty, and he struggled all the harder when he saw me 
reaching out my hand to save him. What a pleasure it was to 
set him free ! He did not stop to thank me but his swift 
departure showed how glad I had made him. 

There were two reasons why I did not spend much time 
in fishing. One was because I was hunting for fine scenery, of 
which I am very fond, and many examples of which I have 
mentioned or tried to describe in preceding pages. I carried 
no camera, as many people wisely do, but years ago I learned 
a recipe for fixing in the mind pictures of beautiful and 
striking scenery, so they could be recalled at any time. Sup- 
pose it is a mountain or a waterfall. Take a good deliberate 
look at it, then close your eyes and reproduce it in your 
thought. Look at it again very carefully, noting features you 
had overlooked before, then shut your eyes and think it again. 
Do this several times, taking plenty of time for it, and you 
have printed on your brain a picture you can quickly call up, 
admire and enjoy at any time, even down to old age. My brain 
is filled with such pictures and none of them are copyrighted. 
If I should become blind I could still clearly see those pic- 
tures. I trust my soul eyes, my spiritual vision, may never 
become blind to the beautiful pictures God has made, and 

[157] 



MY MOUNTAIN'S 



m 



is constantly making, in this world, not only in the mountains 
but on the plains as well. 

The other reason why I have not fished much, or hunted 
wild game, is because I have found something better to seek 
after in the mountains. My hunting and fishing have been in 
digging out of the soil, or blasting out of the rocks, or picking 
up from dump heaps of mines, fine mineral specimens, beauti- 
ful crystals, and sometimes precious stones. And in getting 
them I am sure I have had as much pleasure, to say the least, 
as any gunman gets in killing things, or any fisherman in 
fishing. Then there is the after pleasure of cleaning and 
sorting them, arranging them in my collection, studying them, 
exchanging with other collectors, selling some perhaps, giving 
others away to friends, to children, to colleges and other 
schools. Shoot a deer and catch a string of fish and where are 
they after a few days? Gone, except perhaps the savory 
memory of them. Dig some fine crystals out of earth or rock 
and, unless the^^ are lost, they remain and are admired for 
years, perhaps centuries, as things of beauty and joys forever. 
What cr^'stalline delight I have had again and again and many 
times in digging crystals in or near the mountains! Some 
of my experiences in that line I have recorded in my book 
Crystals and Gold. I shall but briefly refer to them here. 

In the delightful chapters about his mountain trips John 
Muir, who was a fine botanist, often gives a list, with scientific 
names, of trees, bushes and plants that he found. When I 
read those chapters I sometimes read and sometimes skip those 
botanical lists. If he were living and should read this book I 
expect he would be inclined to skip any list that I give of 
minerals that I have found. For, judging from the scarcity 
of references to them in his books, he was not much interested 

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HUNTING, FISHING, AND DIGGING CRYSTALS 

in stones, minerals and crystals, thongli very greatly interested 
in rocks in the mass. 

I remember going many times to the Crystal Beds, west of 
Pike's Peak, and either digging crystals myself, or bnying 
them at very reasonable prices of an old prospector, a ^'fifty- 
niner, ' ' who lived there and spent much time in digging them. 
Thus I secured hundreds, yes, thousands of specimens of smoky 
quartz (cairgorm stone), Amazon stone, or green feldspar, 
white feldspar, curiously twinned crystals of feldspar, green 
fluorite, gothite, topaz, the rare pjienacite, ,'Columbi|te, 
eelestite, etc. 

And I remember the fine pocket of smoky quartz crystals, 
incorrectly called ''smoky topaz," which I found while camp- 
ing alone in Crystal Park near Manitou. My desire to "fuid 
some myself" was fully gratified. What fun it was, what 
mental excitement, in pulling them out of the loose soil ! 

And I remember how in our camping trip to Twin Lakes 
I spent a half day, on a mountain-side overlooking South Park, 
in breaking fine black tourmaline prisms, some of them several 
inches long, out of milky white quartz rock. 

And I remember going several times to "Ruby Mountain" 
at Nathrop in the Arkansas valley, and blasting the volcanic 
rock, rhyolite, and finding in its cavities fine golden topazes, 
and also precious garnets, or spessartite, clearly cut and very 
brilliant. 

And I remember finding or buying crystals of the rare 
phenacite, a sub-gem, that had not before been found in the 
United States and found in but few places in the world. They 
were found in Bear Creek near Colorado Springs, at the Crys- 
tal Beds, and on the summit of Mount Antero, where also were 
found man}' fine crystals of aquamarine, a gem variety of 

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MY MOUNTAINS 

beryl, many of which I secured from the lucky prospector who 
found them far above timber line. 

And I remember, when I was in the Elk Mountains in 
1880 I walked one day several miles up to 0-Be-Joyful Gulch, 
and then climbed a very steep trail up, a long way up, into 
Eedwell Basin, a far uplifted mountain amphitheater, in which 
I found on a dump of a mine all the clusters of crystallized 
iron p3^rites that I could carry away. I g"ot enough to last me 
for years in exchanging;, selling and giving away. Just twenty 
seven years later I was attending a meeting at Crested Butte 
and in company with the mayor and the minister I took that 
long hard tramp again, up along the same foaming, singing 
mountain stream, past the same waterfalls, into the same wild 
basin, and on the same dump of that old unworked mine I 
again found all the crystals, I could carry to town with the 
help of mayor and minister. I suppose I shall be due on that 
crystal dump again in about fourteen years. 

And I remember how I went again and again to Little 
Fountain Creek, twelve miles south of Colorado Springs, be- 
yond Cheyenne Mountain, where we found many fine clusters 
and perfect cones of that geological puzzle, cone-in-cone, and 
large concretions of black limestone which, when broken open, 
sparkled Avith crystals of calcite and an occasional brilliant 
baryta crystal and where also in the clay beds we were always 
sure of finding hundreds, if we wanted that many, of crystals 
of selenite,or crystallized gj^psum, many of which were twinned 
in arrowhead form. 

And I remember the beautiful rose-colored specimens of 
satin spar, or gypsum, I found in Pleasant Park, forty miles 
south of Denver, when we were camping there one summer, 
and how delighted the six children of our party were when 
they found them scattered in such profusion on the ground, 

[i6o] 



HUNTING, FISHING, AND DIGGING CRYSTALS 

where some collector had dug out more than he could carry 
away. 

And I remember the very beautiful geodes, or ' ' pancake ' ' 
concretions of sky-blue celestite which, after two fruitless trips 
in search of them, I finally found near the gateway to the 
Garden of the Gods, an appropriate place in which to find that 
mineral. When word of it got out others went. On one day 
fifteen persons were there digging for them. I found one 
nodule that weighed eight pounds. Years afterward I found a 
fine locality for fine celestite geodes in an old stone quarry 
at Wymore, Nebraska, to which I made several pilgrimages. 

And how well do I remember that red-letter week when 
W. D. Westervelt and myself w^ent to Breckenridge, a mining 
camp whose altitude was about 10,000 feet, to help a brother 
minister dedicate his new church. It was in a wild and beauti- 
ful region of high mountains. During the w^eek we climbed 
mountains and went on long tramps after minerals. AVe went 
several miles up French Gulch, out of which several million 
dollars in gold had been taken. We were not after gold, unless 
it got in our way, but we found great quantities of beautifully 
iridescent "fool's gold." On another trip up that gulch we 
sat several hours in the rain on a mine dump breaking out of 
the rock clear cut crystals of feldspar. Some of them were 
finely traced on the surface, like forest rock. We plodded 
home that night five miles through the rain. It took a long 
time to dry ourselves by the fire-place, which our host kept full 
of blazing pine. Our conversation that night was a medley 
of morals and minerals, of theology and geology, of sermons 
and science. 

And I remember the several trips I took to St. Peter's 
Dome, in the rear of Cheyenne Mountain, at an altitude of 
about 9000 feet, w^here, on the dump of an abandoned prospect 

[i6i] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

hole, we found many small, transparent, hyacinthine crystals 
that were being- called rubies. I identified them as zircon. 
Some of them were of gem quality. Some softer minerals were 
found in the same place, identified as cryolite and its associated 
minerals, one of which was a new variety. These had not 
before been found in the United States, Greenland being the 
source of the cryolite shipped to this county for certain prac- 
tical uses. 

And I remember that wonderful cluster of rosy-red rhodo- 
crosite crystals which I found and bought in a jewelry store 
in Leadville. Learning that it came from Alicante, near the 
summit of Fremont Pass, I afterwards made two trips to the 
locality and spent the day each time on the dump of an aban- 
doned mine near timber line, where destructive avalanches 
plough through the forests in winter time. I was getting 
crystals and clusters of crystals of rhodocrosite, or carbonate 
of manganese, out of the loose rocks that had been thrown 
out as worthless stuf?. Those wondrously beautiful crystals 
had been made and measured and painted ages upon ages 
ago and left there for me to find, to gather, and then to 
scatter far and wide. One cleavage about half an inch long, 
wide and thick, transparent and rose red, I could imagine to 
be a piece of fiery red coal, formed from a million petals of the 
most beautiful red roses that ever bloomed. I never tired of 
looking at it. I found also sphalerite, galenite and cubes of 
iron pyrites. The blow of my hammer was the trumpet of 
Gabriel to awake those crystals to a new life. 

Then I remember three trips to Bijou Basin after petrified 
wood that was finely agatized, jasperized and opalized ; a climb 
after forest rock up on a steep side of Mount Elbert, in re- 
turning from which I was caught in a rainstorm and tempor- 
arily lost in a cottonwood thicket ; a wild goose chase after 

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HUNTING, FISHING, AND DIGGING CRYSTALS 

tourmalines near Florissant ; collecting insect impressions in 
the shale of the old tertiary lake bed, and then sleeping in an 
empty house where we got still more insect impressions ; roam- 
ing over South Park for moss agates and pebbles of blue chal- 
cedony; searching the bluffs north of Colorado Springs for 
blood red carnelians; searching a certain place in Manitou 
after heavy rains for onyx ; finding smoky quartz crystals in 
the roads at Glen Park and on the shores of an extinct lake on 
Bald Mountain ; driving to the foot of Mount Antero on a 
fruitless hunt for beryls, on which trip one minister in our 
party took cold and a few days later shot himself in the 
delirium of mountain fever ; searching the mine and ore dumps 
of Leadville, Aspen, Central, Gothic, Red Mountain, Siiverton, 
Telluride, and other mining towns; picking up specimens in 
the Grand Canon of the Colorado and around the Royal Gorge 
of the Arkansas ; dickering for turquoise and pottery with 
Pueblo Indians in one of their curious community houses ; 
hunting for relics in the cliff dwellings of Walnut Canon in 
Arizona; returning from a weeks' trip in Yellowstone Park 
with as many specimens as my conscience and the government 
regulations would allow, perhaps a few more. 

And, once more, I remember, as they also do, when I took 
my children and a sister's children — they are middle aged 
men and women now — to North Table Mountain, near and 
about 700 feet above Golden, fifteen miles west of Denver. A 
Denver University president with his geology class of about 
twenty young men and women went on the same train. We 
beat them in climbing the mountain, which is a great ancient 
lava bed full of minerals that go under the name of Zeolites. 
As we broke up the rock we found little cavities — caves the 
children called them — air bubbles in the lava, from those of 
tiniest size to those that were several inches long. They were 

[■63] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

lined or filled with crystals of chabazite, thompsonite, analcite, 
apophylite, mesolite, stilbite, calcite and other ites. The crys- 
talline and crystal-lined cavities brought crystal sparkles to 
eager eyes. Long before noon the children found a good deal 
of ' ' apatite, " so we ate an early and hearty dinner. Then we 
went to the top of the mountain and romped and played, in- 
haled oxygen and exhaled shouts and laughter, explored the 
rocks and rolled stones down the mountain. We saw Denver 
in the distance and the great plains far beyond. We looked 
up at the great mountains far beyond and above us, and down 
on the busy town below. We thought of the time when the 
rock beneath our feet was a stream of molten lava, and we 
wondered how long it took that mountain stream seven hun- 
dred feet below us to cut asunder the mountain of lava, and 
how long for the myriad of air bubbles enclosed in it to fill with 
so many kinds of crystals. I am sure that was a red-letter day 
for the children. Again and again in the eighties of last cen- 
tury did I go to that mountain for crystals, and never without 
getting a goodly number. 

And, just once more, how well do I remember the trip 
my eldest son, then a high school student, and myself, took to 
the Black Hills, he to collect wild flowers and I to collect 
minerals, and both of us with eyes open for scenery and 
mouths open for trout. We found an abundance of all. And 
what glorious vacation days those were as we roamed over the 
hills and through the valleys around Custer, Deadwood, Spear- 
fish and Hot Springs. I will not attempt to name the flowers 
we found. My son could do that and John Muir might enjoy 
reading their botanical names. As to minerals, I found tour- 
maline, mica, and very brilliant tourmaline embedded in mica, 
biotite and muscovite mixed in the same mica plates, graphite, 
large crystals of beryl, staurolite, garnets and other minerals. 

[164] 



HUNTING, FISHING, AND DIGGING CRYSTALS 

We shipped home a hundred and fifty pounds of minerals and 
very many pressed flowers. We went into Wind Cave near 
Hot Springs and went through many of the 2100 rooms that 
were said to have been explored, and that if placed end to end 
would make a length, they said, of some ninety miles. 

And I remember, if I may use a preacher's license of 
having more than one "lastly," hunting for agates, carnelians, 
and jasper pebbles, on the Pacific beach at Newport, Oregon. 
I picked up a hundred or more good ones before dark, then, 
went over the same ground early the next morning and found 
perhaps a hundred more, after the tide in the night had stirred 
up the pebbly beach and brought more good ones to the surface, 
a process which I suppose cannot forever continue to expose 
good specimens for the many tourists who are constantly 
looking for .them. 

Back of the mineral memories I have mentioned, are 
memories of mineral trips in childhood and during college 
vacations, in northern New York and in the edge of the Adi- 
rondacks, but they are another story. They do not belong to 
my mountain experiences. 



[■65] 



CHAPTER XV 
THE SAN JUAN MOUNTAINS 

SAN JUAN (pronounced San Wan) is Spanish for Saint 
John. When I went to Colorado in 1876 I heard much 
talk about the San Juan. I soon learned, the expression was 
used for a certain extensive region in the southwestern part of 
the state, and the name was derived either from the San Juan 
Mountains, or the San Juan River. Such use of the definite 
article with some local name to indicate a region is quite com- 
mon in mining regions. It is the same as though eastern people 
should speak of the Hudson and mean by it, not the river of 
that name, but the whole region through which the river flows. 

When I visited the San Juan I was charmed with its 
wonderful scenery, so much so that I went again and Avent as 
often as I could. The sharp outlines of its mountains, the 
profound depths and dizzy heights, the green valleys, the 
charming waterfalls, the sylvan retreats, the variety of wild 
flowers in the valleys and on Alpine heights, the steep preci- 
pices, the great forests, the hot springs, the hidden wealth of 
gold and silver and crystals — all these make it an ideal moun- 
tain region, visions of whose loveliness and grandeur are ever 
and anon flitting through the minds of those who have been 
there and making them wish to go again. 

There were no railroads there in 1876. To get there re- 
quired a journey of several hundred miles on foot, horse-back, 
or by wagons. Now and for many years railroads reach every 
prominent mining camp. In my trips there I traveled by rail, 

[i66] 




4'' , 






.'f-r- ' 



i$1 

i 



THE SAN JUAN MOUNTAINS 

stage and on foot. In preceding chapters I have told of some 
of my experiences there and of things I saw, the Bridal Veil 
Falls, encountering a storm and a bear on a high pass, Animas 
Canon, etc. The additional things I tell of in this chapter 
I take from my accounts of several different trips to that 
region. 

The trip of 1000 miles, more or less, is called the Trip 
Around the Circle, and can be taken by different routes. To 
decide which is the best way to go and which the best for re- 
turning the tourist should consult the railroad agents, the 
time tables, and disinterested persons who have been there. It 
is best to take at least a week for the trip, though one can take 
it in less time and can profitably use much more time. 

One starts from Denver or Colorado Springs, goes to 
Pueblo, then over Veta Pass into San Luis Park, or west to 
Canon City, through the Royal Gorge to Salida and thence into 
San Luis Park. Of the Royal Gorge I have written in chapters 
three and nine, and of San Luis Park in chapter eight. From 
San Luis Park to Durango is 160 miles, which is the tame part 
of the trip from Denver to Silverton. Yet it is full of interest 
and presents at least one grand feature, Toltec Gorge. 

Our train suddenly emerges from a deep cut through a 
hill and faces a valley some 500 feet deep. It turns squarely 
to the right and loses no time in going around that valley. 
In and out of one little side valley after another we go, until, 
a mile or more away, we reach the head of the longer valley and 
come down on the opposite side in the same zigzag way. 

We now look down a thousand feet or more into the great 
valley at our left, — to which the other is tributary, — upon 
the summits of lofty hills. If the train should leave the track 
at some of these curves it would be kindling wood and scrap- 
iron before it stopped. Miles away and near the top of the 

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MY MOUNTAINS 

mountains we can see where the track suddenly enters a dark 
hole. 

We reach Phantom Curve. "We are on curves all the time 
and the whole scene is phantom-like. We thread our way 
through and around great masses of conglomerate that the ele- 
ments have worn into strange shapes. Immense pinnacles and 
needles tower above us, while on some others we look down, 
for we are running along the side of a steep mountain, with 
heights above and depths below. 

We make one great curve after another as the side valleys 
are passed, and now we are heading for the great gorge b}^ 
which the stream has broken through these mountains. At 
last we reach the jumping off place, almost at the top of the 
mountain. The gorge is directly in front, the deep valley to 
the left, and a precipice of rock to the right. A sharp turn 
to the right and we enter a tunnel 600 feet long. As we enter 
we look down into Toltec Gorge a thousand feet or so. Dark- 
ness for a few moments and then the light. Just as we leave 
the tunnel we cross a sort of bridge over a narrow chasm and 
for one brief moment we catch a glimpse that makes us 
tremble. We breathe freer when it is past, and yet we pass it 
so quick that we fain would take a longer look. We could 
jump from the car step down into that fearful chasm — a 
thousand feet, perhaps two thousand — it matters little which, 
with the foaming river at the bottom. 

Just after leaving the tunnel we pass a square granite 
monument which the national association of general passenger 
agents erected on the spot where they held memorial services 
for President Garfield at the time of his funeral, Sept. twenty- 
sixth, 1881. 

We soon cross to the Pacific slope, A little rivulet run- 
ning this way, a slope, a hill, then a rivulet running the other 

[i68] 



THE SAN JUAN MOUNTAINS 

way, and we are on the other side of the continent. By rail or 
stage, in one place or another, I have crossed that continental 
divide about fifty times. It is always interesting and sug- 
gestive. 

Our train stops for awhile near a marshy pond. The con- 
ductor takes his gun and goes hunting. The passengers watch 
the sport from the cars as he fires again and again at the wild 
ducks. He returns without them and takes to railroading 
again for a living. The train proceeds — and gets in on time. 

The road dips into New Mexico. We glide and curve down 
through beautiful evergreen groves and through quiet parks. 
We pass flocks of sheep that Mexican herdsmen are lazily 
tending. We go through canons and valleys around which 
cluster strange stories of robbery and murder. For a long 
distance we run through an Indian reservation. The Indians 
can ride free on the ears and they are evidently fond of riding. 
They make good depot loungers ; they stand erect and keep 
their mouths shut. One of them sat behind me. I showed him 
a picture in my guide-book of a Ute chief. He studied it 
intently for a long time and then said with a grunt of disgust : 
' ' He no Indian, cow-boy kill. ' ' 

For 170 miles we have passed nothing that could be called 
a town or village. At Durango, a place of several thousand 
people, I stopped at a corner fruit store to make some inquiry. 
The young man looked at me, then pulled from his pocket a 
well-worn recommendation signed by myself many years be- 
fore, when he was a pupil and I his teacher in Oberlin College. 
I could not deny my handwriting, so I expressed the hope that 
in that wild western country he had kept his character as 
carefully as he had his certificate of character. 

In the forty-five miles of splendid scenery from Durango 

[169] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

to Silverton the road, runs the full length of Animas Canon, 
of which I have told in chapter nine. 

Silverton is beautifully situated, at an altitude of 9400 
feet, in an open park a mile or more in length and breadth, 
with very lofty mountains rising far above it on each of its 
four sides. Grandest of all is Mount Sultan, with its great for- 
ests and gorges and basins and its five or more snow-capped 
summits. A little ways below the town are some fine waterfalls, 
while up on the mountain sides can be seen the great swaths 
which avalanches have cut through the forests. At certain 
times in the winter. the people of Silverton can watch the snow 
slides from their doors, both seeing and hearing them as they 
rush down the surrounding mountains, sometimes several of 
them in a day. 

From Silverton to Ouray is twenty miles and it is one of 
the finest rides, or walks, in Colorado. 

Leaving Silverton in a full stage, before the railroad was 
built, we cross steep slopes of rock-slides with precipices below 
us. If a slide of loose rock should get started there would be 
no resisting it. We keep rising and every moment reveals some- 
thing new. Now a lofty rock miles away that leans like the 
tower of Pisa, now a winding creek far below us, now a 
straight swath nearly a mile long where the snow has cut 
through a great uplifted forest, now a forest all cut up b}'^ 
snow-slides into square blocks and triangles, now a small lake 
of hot water beside the road. We eagerly drink it all in — the 
scenery, not the water, and we thank God, whose thoughts 
throng thickly through all this region, for furnishing such 
food to nourish our love for the beautiful and the sublime. 

Eight miles brings us to Chattanooga, a small village that 
was nearly destroyed one winter day by a snow-slide that tore 
directly through it. Then the road winds in several parallel 

[170] 




THE SAN JUAN MOUNTAINS 

lines up the steep pass and reaches Red Mountain. A mile 
or two beyond is the big and rich Yankee Girl mine. While we 
are eating dinner with the second shift of miners I am called 
on to speak to them for two minutes, a time limit that I do not 
exceed. After dinner the big engine sounds its shrill whistle. 
As soon as it ceases the mountains are full of whistles and 
shrieks that come back to us from every crag and valley side. 
The mountains seem suddenly alive with shrieking demons 
whose wierd cries slowly die away among the distant crags. 

We pass Ironton, another mining camp, from which I 
started over the range when I met the bear. Red Mountain is 
near by with its different summits. Its vast slopes of bright 
red color, alternating with yellow and lavender, and with green 
forests and white snowdrifts, make such a combination of 
colors as would be pronounced unreal if in a picture. 

For several miles we ride along the edge of a narrow 
grassy park — Red Mountain Park. Then for four miles it 
is one continuous plunge down through a rocky gorge with a 
descent of 2000 feet. Through it flows, or dashes, the Un- 
compaghre River. At one spot the horses trot around a curve 
of the road about ten feet wide, cut out of the side of a preci- 
pice. A pebble can be tossed into the river many hundreds 
of feet below, while a stone might fall into the road from a 
thousand feet above. 

We cross a wild dashing side stream that seems to spring 
upon us out of a narrow gorge. We cross it on a bridge that 
is built over the water after it begins its fall of some 260 feet 
into the chasm below. All around us it is overpoweringly sub- 
lime and grand. The ten or twelve miles from Ironton to 
Ouray I have walked several times, always preferring that de- 
liberate and safe way of going through that valley. 

[171] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

Ouray. Manitou and every other town in Colorado must 
yield the palm to Ouray for magnificent mountain surround- 
ings. Here are mountains piled on mountains, precipices 
towering" above precipices, canons within canons, waterfalls 
in great number and variety, hot springs, mines, crystal beds, 
and what not. Roughly speaking the town may be described as 
embosomed in a little irregular valley, over which the moun- 
tains rise many thousand feet in all sorts of irregular shapes, 
while several large streams come tumbling over into the valley, 
or gliding into it through box-canons, and springs of hot 
water rise out of the ground to meet them. 

The town has an altitude of between seven and eight 
thousand feet, while some of the mountains rise about a mile 
higher. In the winter one can sit in the warm sunshine of the 
valley, where there is not much snow, and look up one of the 
side valleys and see the snow banners streaming from the 
summit of White House Mountain. East of town Cascade 
Creek leaps apparently right out of a precipice a thousand 
feet high and falls some 200 feet, all in plain sight of the 
town. To the West Oak Creek comes out of a wild valley 
and canon which, within two or three miles, contains numerous 
cascades and two perpendicular falls of two hundred or two 
hundred and fifty feet each. Each fall is in a narrow canon. 
South of town. Canon Creek comes down from a beautiful 
valley and with difficulty squeezes its way through a very nar- 
row and very wild canon and joins the Uncompaghre River, 
which, together with the stage road from Silverton, comes 
down still another valley, and also squeezes through a "box- 
canon," very narrow, very deep, and almost impenetrable. 
Southeast, and only a few minutes walk from the hotel, Port- 
land Creek comes through another unique canon in a series 
of very fine falls and cascades. The box-canons are very 

[172] 



THE SAN JUAN MOUNTAINS 

narrow and are more like deep crevices one or two hundred 
feet deep. The tops of the walls are so near together that 
they sometimes shut out the sun. In some of those canons 
there are fine waterfalls that can be reached only when the 
water is very low. The water in some of the streams does not 
freeze in winter because of the hot springs that abound near 
them. 

Two sheer precipices, a thousand feet or so in height, 
face each other on opposite sides of the river just below the 
town. Some of the houses west of the river are built among 
huge angular rocks that have fallen from one of the great 
precipices. I could but think that it was only a question of 
time when more rocks would fall and the houses might be in 
their way. 

Our ride from Ouray to Montrose, before the railroad was 
completed, was full of interest. It took us through Uncom- 
paghre Park, ten miles long by one or more wide, through 
Chippeta, named after Chief Ouray 's widow, past Dallas, which 
was getting its saloons ready to be a railroad terminus and to 
which our stage took a load of sleek-looking gamblers, past a 
United States army post and Chief Ouray's old home farm, 
now through deep dust and then through a pouring rain and 
deep mud, through fields of cactus and sage brush and diminu- 
tive forests of pinon trees, with every now and then a back- 
ward look to the gigantic wall of snow-capped mountains, 
through and over and out of which we had come. 

At Montrose we take the cars again and enjoy the splendid 
scenery of Black Canon, through which runs, rushes, roars and 
rages the Gunnison River. When at full flood it would sweep 
away our train if it should leave the track for the river. At 
one point Chippeta Falls leaps from the canon wall and nearly 
hits the track and the train. Currecanti Needle is a sharp, 



MY MOUNTAINS 

steep, lofty pinnacle of rock on whose summit some daring 
steeple-jack has planted the American flag. 

The track crosses and recrosses the river for fifteen or 
twenty miles. We cross Marshall Pass, then down to Salida, 
and thus complete our circle if we entered San Luis Park via 
Salida, but if we entered it via Veta Pass we must go on to 
Pueblo, passing through the Royal Gorge. From Pueblo to 
Denver we are on familiar ground. 

Side Trips. From Montrose, instead of returning via 
Black Canon and Marshall Pass, one can go down the valley 
to Grand Junction and there take the main line of the Denver 
and R.io Grande, through the Canon of the Grand E/iver, Eagle 
Canon, past Glenwood Springs, over Tennesee Pass, past Lead- 
ville and then down the Arkansas valley and through the 
Royal Gorge. 

On coming up the Black Canon one can take a branch road 
from Gunnison to Crested Butte in the Elk Mountains, 
some thirty miles. There is some fine scenery in the Elk 
Mountains, as I found in 1880 when I reached them by a ninety 
mile stage ride from Salida over Marshall Pass. 

Or one can come up the Black Canon and at Sapinero take 
another branch line to Lake Cit}^, which is in the San Juan, 
up the Lake Fork branch of the Gunnison, an ideal mountain 
stream, clear, snowborn, ever hurr3dng, full of cascades, falls, 
swift currents and eddying pools. In a wide valley the river 
has cut a deep narrow^ canon in the eruptive rock, the tallest 
trees in the canon just about reaching its top, which is tlie bot- 
tom of the valley. The road runs in the valley along the 
canon's edge. The ride is a fine one. It takes three hours 
to go the thirty-seven miles. Lake City has an altitude of 
8500 feet. When I was there it was a booming mining town 
full of miners and prospectors. All the talk was of ores and 

[174] 



THE SAN JUAN MOUNTAINS 

mines, prospects and rich strikes. The snow' had been five 
feet on the level and the high mountains were still covered 
with vast beds of it. One mountain is called "71" because in 
summer the vast snow beds and rock ridges outline the figures 
71. 

Three miles above Lake City is Lake Christoval, a roman- 
tic and beautiful lake several miles long, said to have been 
discovered by a Spanish monk some three centuries ago. Be- 
tween it and Lake City are several fine falls. The finest one. 
Granite Falls, is a mile from town and in plain view from it. 
The river plunges in an irregular fall eighty feet into a rocky 
gorge. As I looked into the mists that rise from the fall I 
saw a beautiful rainbow. I have seen higher falls in Colorado 
but none over which rushes such a volume of water. As in so 
many other places my stay was too short. The trouble with 
Colorado is that within its 60,000 square miles of mountain 
ranges there are so many trips to take, and so many delightful 
resorts to visit, it would take years to do full justice to them 
all. They are so different from each other that to see one is 
not to see all. Some of my readers will be disappointed be- 
cause some of their favorite resorts are not even mentioned, 
much less described. 

Such air as I breathed on that beautiful May morning at 
Lake City! I found myself involuntarily straightening my 
body and filling my lungs with such draughts of ozone as 
dwellers on the plains do not often breathe. It was air that 
had swept over mountains of snow, and been sifted through 
forests of pine, and sprayed by dancing streams and cascades 
of crystal waters. I am an old toiler at drinking such air. To 
stand still and breathe it was a positive pleasure. If it could 
be bottled and sent over the country it would do more good, 
I believe, than the bottled mineral waters of Manitou. 

[175] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

Back in the Animas Canon, between Durango and Silver- 
ton, is a station called Rockwood, from which, before any rail- 
road had been built to Rico, I took a nearly forty mile stage 
ride to reach what was then one of the most out of the way 
places in Colorado. I had been sick all night and could eat 
no breakfast, and could scarce endure the sixteen mile car 
ride from Durango to Rockwood. Then I boarded a rickety, 
rock-wracked old buckboard for an all day ride over two 
mountain ranges. It was loaded with dead hogs and other 
freight securely strapped on, and on top of all a seat for the 
driver and myself. On the first hill we met a number of 
freight wagons, each drawn by five or six yoke of oxen. Our 
driver, a mere boy, had failed to hear their signal, so we had 
to be pulled back by hand to a point where they could pass. 

For miles we rode along the base of perpendicular preci- 
pices a thousand feet high, more or less. The layers of rock of 
varying thickness were of all colors from red to white. All 
around us were open parks, thickets of trees, and such vast 
flower beds as must waste immense quantities of sweetness on 
the mountain air, if indeed such sweetness is ever wasted. As 
we rise higher we leave the belt of majestic white pines and 
enter the aspen belt. The trees rise like bare liberty poles, 
many of them a hundred feet high and two feet in diameter, 
and standing very near together. Higher still we reached the 
spruce zone. The spruce trees also are very tall at this high 
altitude, very straight and very near together. 

After leaving the ranch house where the driver got dinner 
and I a cup of tea and a short nap, we began, with the aid of 
an extra horse, a long steep climb of several miles to get over 
the second range. When I thought we were near the summit, 
I saw, far ahead and far above, the red line of the road cut 
through the forest. When we reach, the summit we are on a 

[176] 



THE SAN JUAN MOUNTAINS 

sharp ridge, like a gigantic up-turned axe, on the sharp edge 
of which we ride for a mile or two. Straight down on either 
side stretches the dense forest into deep valleys, the pointed 
tree tops ready to impale us if we fall over. The view of dis- 
tant ranges is fine, especially the La Plata Mountains to the 
southwest and the very sharp and rugged peaks of the 
Quartzite group to the east. 

The descent is by a long series of curves by which the 
side canons and valleys are crossed by going around them. 
The days's ride cures me. When I reach Rico and wash off the 
different colored layers of dust that indicate the different 
geological regions traversed I am ready to break my twenty- 
four hours fast by eating a hearty supper. 

Rico is on the Dolores River, in the Bear River Mountains, 
at an altitude of 8700 feet, in a deep valley over which the 
mountains rise to 12,400 feet. In winter the snow is sometimes 
nine feet deep. In a single mining basin near there, I was 
told the deaths from snow-slides averaged six or eight each 
winter. One winter the roads were so blocked, flour was 
thirty-five dollars per hundred and meat seventy-two cents a 
pound. Whiskey gave out entirely, and everybody noticed 
how much the old topers improved in appearance. 

What a charming summer residence that region is ! There 
is a great variety to the great mountains that rear their heads 
far above the town. They are partly covered with forests of 
pine and spruce and poplar, while above the timber line 
there are great upland stretches of flowery fields and parks 
beneath the beetling crags that crown the summits, while 
springs and brooks, waterfalls and gorges, canons and mines 
abound on every side. 

I stepped out one night to look at the mountains by moon- 
light and the scene was wonderfully picturesque and beautiful. 

[177] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

As I lay in my bed I could hear the low tinkle of the little 
stream that flowed through the street, and, mingling with it, 
the noisy babble of the mountain brook, and the deep bass of 
the larger river. 

A man told me he saw at one time twelve cinnamon bears 
feeding on acorns on one mountain side. Across the river is 
a poisonous tunnel, at whose mouth one can see dead insects, 
mice and birds that have breathed the poisonous gas that 
escapes from the earth. 

I stood by a hardware merchant as he nailed up a box, 
pounding the nails in with a big hammer. When he had nearly 
finished he casually remarked, he supposed it was careless 
to nail up giant powder in that way. I edged off towards the 
door. 

While sitting in the hotel office Sunday afternoon I hap- 
pened to hear two hotel employees talking in the next room. 

"Are you going to hear the preacher tonight?" said the 
man. 

"You bet I am," said the woman, and then added: "Oh 
say, let all hands of us go and make him stand on his head 
and dance." 

"I don't know about that," said the man, "he is a pretty 
good sized old man and he might kick." 

I was then about forty and it was a new sensation to 
hear myself called an old man. 

"What denomination is he?" said one. 

"Give it up," said the other, "but he looks like an Israel- 
ite." That evening they and about a hundred others of all 
sorts of characters were present and gave me as attentive an 
audience as one could ask for. 

On our return trip we had with us on the open stage some 
very lively company in the shape of two young ladies from an 

[178] 



THE SAN JUAN MOUNTAINS 

eastern school, who had been camping out and fishing with 
friends. They were evidently nice girls but so full of animal 
spirits and mountain ozone that the least thing would send 
them off into a laugh. They would lean up against each other 
and laugh heartily at nothing; they couldn't help it. They 
were much given to school girl slang, especially one of them 
whose tongue rattled ceaslessly on all day long. Sitting on the 
front seat I privately took notes. "Cute," was her favorite 
word. Everything she saw or talked about, a friend's initial, 
a squirrel, a mule by the roadside, or a grand mountain view, 
was "perfectly cute." "That lavendar sky is just lovely." 
"I just admire big noses." A young man whom she knew 
was ' ' poor but awfully nice. " " Nature up here in the moun- 
tains is just too lovely for anything." "I am just stuck on 
that fashion, I am just utterly gone. ' ' A,nd so it went on for 
hours. The driver could hardly restrain his laughter. He re- 
lieved himself at one place, and perhaps thought he would 
scare the young ladies, by letting the horses out at full speed, 
and as they fairly ran down the mountain over a steep rocky 
road, where I had to hold on with both hands to keep from be- 
ing thrown out, the young lady burst out with peals of laugh- 
ter and fairly screamed with delight as she exclaimed : ' ' Oh, 
how I do admire this abruptness!" 

Telluride. Another side trip is from Red Mountain, be- 
tween Silverton and Ouray, over the range some seven miles 
to Telluride. In chapter ten I have told how I crossed that 
range. Probably very few persons take that trip now, as 
they can reach Telluride b,y rail. I went over on foot. When 
I returned I hired a horse and rode it to the summit, then 
turned it loose and it returned alone to the livery stable, as 
it was trained to do. 

[179] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

Telluride is in a valley 8600 feet high, with mountains 
around it about a mile higher. In the very outskirts of the 
town is a romantic canon and a beautiful waterfall 120 feet 
high. Far up on the top of one mountain slope is a dome of 
rock very high and conspicuous. Looking to the head of the 
valley about two miles away we see a wall of rock about a 
thousand feet high, above which are green slopes, and gray 
domes of rock, and patches of timber pierced here and there 
by avalanche paths. Then comes the timber line and then 
three sharp peaks and one gracefully rounded dome. We 
look up into a great mountain basin that is surrounded by 
steep walls and guarded by great domes of rock. Out of that 
basin comes a stream that leaps and bounds down the moun- 
tain for thousands of feet, a long path of white whose 
roaring can be heard at Telluride when all is still at night, 
and which is in plain sight from the village. 

To the left is another great basin, or series of basins, 
out of which come roaring brooks in such a series of cas- 
cades as would drive an artist wild with delight. These 
unite with each other and go plunging down into great 
chasms, and at the head of the valley unite with other 
similar streams to form the San Miguel River. It was down 
this last valley that I was coming when I first caught sight of 
the Bridal Veil Palls, described in chapter six. 

The San Juan mountains and waterfalls are emphati- 
cally mine ; they are yours too, if you have been there and 
seen and appreciated them. And a great host of us can saj 
that they are ours. 



[i8o] 



fr;;-- 





LONE STAR GEYSER, YELLOWSTONE PARK 



CHAPTER XVI 
YELLOWSTONE PARK 

THERE are certain features of natural scenery in which 
America beats the world. In all the world there is but 
one Niagara Falls, though in Africa there is a close rival. 
There is but one system of Great Lakes, containing 6000 
cubic miles of water, all passing over Niagara in due time. 
There is but one Mammoth Cave, but one Grand Canon of the 
Colorado, but one Yosemite, but one Muir Glacier, unless we 
except the ice sheets of Greenland, and they belong to North 
America, and last but not least there is but one Yellowstone 
Park. These things we might call the Seven Wonders of our 
country. If some globe-trotter rules out one or more of them 
we can easily add some other, the Big Trees for example, or 
Glacier Park, or Crater Lake, or the Mississippi — Missouri 
river system. While from the works of man and his dis- 
coveries and inventions we could easily name another Seven 
Wonders of the world that would far exceed the Seven 
Wonders of the ancients. 

If one would see kings and queens, ex-emperors, noble 
or ignoble earls and lords, cathedrals, old ruins and new ruins, 
painted pictures, museums, vast armies, dungeons and 
fortresses, let him go to Europe. But if he would see mag- 
nificent scenery, as fine as the world affords, let him stay 
in the United States. Ours is a new country but many of 
our scenic attractions are much more new. It is practically 
only since the Civil War that the people have known much 

[i8i] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

about four of the above seven wonders, viz : The Grand 
Canon, Yosemite, Muir Glacier and Yellowstone Park. 

Yellowstone Park is in the northwest corner of Wyom- 
ing, lapping over a few miles into Montana and Idaho. It is 
nearly 2000 miles by rail from Chicago, or about 1100 miles 
in a straight line by aeroplane. It is sixty-five miles long 
and fifty-five wide and contains 3575 square miles, three- 
fourths as large as Connecticut and three and one-half 
times as large as Rhode Island. It contains 2,288,000 acres, 
which would make 14,300 farms of 160 acres each, but no 
one could do an3i:hing, farming at that altitude, the plateau 
being from 7500 to 8500 feet high. If divided up, the park 
would give to its owners, the people of the United States, 
one-eleventh of an acre to each five persons on which to 
pitch their tent. An addition of twenty miles south and east 
to the reservation has increased the Park to 6375 square 
miles, about the size of New Hampshire. It is not a city 
park. There is no sign to "keep off the grass," except in 
one place, put up as a joke, there being no grass in that spot. 
Yet visitors are forbidden to interfere with the natural for- 
mations around the geysers and springs. It is a Government 
Reservation, reserved partly for the pleasure of the people, 
partly to protect the game, and the forests, which hold the 
snows that feed the great rivers that water great plains and 
vallej^s outside, partly to protect the Avonderful natural 
formations from vandals and extortioners. It was set apart 
by Congress in 1872, the first great reservation in our 
country. 

The Indians avoided the park, calling it "heap, heap 
bad," and "white man's hell." The real knowledge of the 
park hy the American people dates from about 1870. There 
was much incredulity about the reports of the first ones who 

[182] 



YELLOWSTONE PARK 

saw it. A geological survey Avas made in 1871-2. Before 
visiting the park in 1898 I read a bulky government report 
and thus prepared myself to enjoy it. In fact I was thus 
able to give some pointers to the regular guides. United 
States soldiers patrol the park summer and winter. There 
are also private detectives who help enforce the strict regu- 
lations about fuel, fires, fire-arms, fishing, etc. 

The government has built some two hundred miles of 
good roads. People go through the park on foot, by bicycle 
and motorcycle, wagons, stage, and now with autos. They 
can camp at certain places, or stay in big hotels, or in the 
tents of certain permanent camps. I paid the AYiley Com- 
pam^ thirty-five dollars for transportation and board for a 
week's trip, spending Sunday at the Upper Geyser Basin. 
We crossed the continental divide twice. Three-fifths of the 
drainage is to the Atlantic through the Yellowstone River. 
There are several groups or ranges of mountains in and 
around the park. There are twenty-five named waterfalls, 
and thirty-six named lakes, covering 165 square miles. 
There are hundreds of geysers and thousands (3600) of hot 
springs of all sizes. Frost occurs every month. Ice forms in 
July and the season for visiting the park is short. Snow be- 
gins in August or September and before the next June about 
twenty feet falls. AVarm clothing is needed, overcoats, 
plenty of bedding, fire in the tents, etc. The plateau is not a 
plain but abounds in hills, valleys, canons, bluffs and moun- 
tains. There are open grassy parks, like Hayden's Park, and 
dense forests of firs, fires in which are apt to be disastrous. 

The branch railroad from Livingstone runs up the Yel- 
lowstone River fifty-one miles, through Paradise Valley, 
which is thirty miles long and from seven to twelve miles 
wide, along the base of the mountains, in sight of Emigrant 

[183] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

Peak, 10,629 feet high, of many deltas pushing out from 
mountain valleys, and of the red Cinnabar Mountains. It is 
all very interesting and gives one an opportunity to study 
geology on a large scale as he looks from the car window. 
Electric Peak dominates the view to the west. It is 11,155 
feet high and some six miles away. 

Mammoth Hot Springs is the first great sight and fitly 
introduces one to the peculiar park scenery. There are three 
square miles of the lime deposits, one hundred and seventy 
acres of the region of active springs, thirteen of the great 
terraces and fifty springs, some of them of great size. 
Liberty Cap, fifty feet high and forty-five by twenty at the 
base, is the core of an old spring. The crumbling deposits of 
the dead terraces are of a dazzling white in the sun. The 
springs overflow and deposit lime, forming great cups and 
basins with corrugated borders. The water is so clear that 
it is almost invisible, yet with so much lime in solution that 
objects left in it for a few days are covered with a white 
deposit. Such objects are sold to tourists. 

Hayden says in his report: ''The wonderful transpar- 
ency of the water surpasses anything of the kind I have ever 
seen in any other portion of the world. The sky, with the 
smallest cloud that flits across it, is reflected in its clear 
depths, and the ultra-marine colors, more vivid than the sea, 
are greatly heightened by the constant gentle vibrations. 
One can look down into the clear depths and see with perfect 
distinctness the minutest ornament on the inner sides of the 
basins, and the exquisite beauty of the coloring and the 
variety of forms baffle any attempt to portray them, either 
with pen or pencil. And then, to, around the border of these 
springs and on the sides and bottoms of the numerous 
little channels of the streams that flow from these springs 

[184] 



y 



YELLOWSTONE PARK 

there is. a striking variety of the most vivid colors. I can 
only compare them to our most brilliant aniline dyes — 
various shades of red, from the brightest scarlet to the bright 
rose tint ; also yellow, from deep bright sulphur through all 
the shades, to light cream color. There are also various 
shades of green from the peculiar vegetation. There are also 
in the little streams that flow from the boiling springs great 
quantities of a fibrous silky substance, apparently vegetable, 
which vibrates at the slightest movement of the water, and 
has the appearance of the finest quality of cashmere wool." 

The park is covered with rhyolite, a volcanic rock that 
flowed in the tertiary age, thousands of feet thick. The 
volcanic fires are not extinct, hence the hot springs and 
geysers. 

One mile of the road by which we climb to the park 
plateau cost $14,000. The scenery where we enter is pic- 
turesque. A hailstorm rudely greets us, pelting the poor 
horses and turning the road into a river. It soon passes and 
then we have superb weather for a week. At our first Wiley 
camp we found good tents, a good table, attentive waiters, 
rainbow trout, flowers, and a sound sleep. 

Saturday morning we started early so as to make thirty- 
nine miles that day. I can give but a tantalizing and partial 
list of what we saw in that one day : Obsidian Cliff, which is 
a small mountain of black volcanic glass, of which I laid in 
a good supply, Beaver Lake, Twin Lakes, Roaring Mountain, 
Frying Pan, a little sputtering, sizzling geyser, Norris Basin, 
where we stop for an hour, Black Growler, Minute Geyser, 
which throws water thirty feet every minute, a dead tree 
covered with silica beads, Elk Park and Gibbon Meadows, 
Gibbon Canon, six miles long and 2000 feet deep they said, 
with its swift, sparkling, many-colored river. Beryl Pool, blue 

[185] 



MY MOUNTAINS 



and boiling, Gibbon Falls, Fire Hole River, a clear, swift and 
beautiful stream, Lower Geyser Basin, with some 700 hot 
springs and seventeen geysers. Fountain Geyser, Mammoth 
Paint Pots, in a basin forty by sixty feet, boiling like thick 
hasty pudding, plop, plop, plop at many points at once, 
showing nature in a funny mood, Midway Geyser Basin, 
Excelsior, covered with dense steam and sending 4000 gal- 
lons of hot water every minute into the near-by river. Hell's 
Half Acre, Turquois Pool, 100 feet across and full of blue 
transparent water, Prismatic Lake, 250 by 300 feet, deep blue 
in the center, then green, then yellow, a red deposit outside, 
red steam, Artemisia and Morning Glory springs, or geysers. 
All these precede the Upper Basin, which we reached Satur- 
day night and where we remained over Sunday. It is the 
place of chief interest in the whole park. 

Imagine a valley or basin a mile and a half long and 
containing about three square miles. Dense forests cover 
the hills around it. In the basin are some 440 springs, 
twenty-six of them being geysers. There is no other such 
place in all the world. The geysers of Iceland and of New 
Zealand do not compare with it. Steam rises from the 
springs and from countless holes and cracks in the rocks. On 
cool mornings and evenings the valley looks like a great man- 
ufacturing city. Springs and geysers are scattered over 
great white deposits, some of which cover acres. 

We camp in a grove near some geysers. The Daisy 
ejects hot water fifty feet every two hours ; Narrow Guage 
every forty-five minutes ; Riverside a hundred feet every 
eight hours and lasting fifteen minutes; Grotto every four 
hours ; Giant which plays from one and a half to two hours 
every four to six days and throwing water 250 feet; 
Economic, every seven minutes, all of its water flowing back 

[i86] 



1 



I 

I 



i 



YELLOWSTONE PARK 

into itself ; Sawmill, with its four vents and rasping noise ; 
Cascade, with its many sudden spurts of water; Giantess, 
Beehive, Lion and Lioness and their two cubs close by; 
Castle, with its very large cone ; and best of all, Old Faithful, 
which is on a mound 145 by 215 feet and plays without fail 
every sixty-three to seventy minutes and throws the hot 
water up nearly or quite 150 feet, forming rainbows and 
filling surrounding pools. I thoughtlessly attempted to pick 
up some of the very hot water, as I pick up cold water in 
the mountains, by joining my two hands as a cup, but I 
dropped it very quick. 

Near our camp were the Punch Bowl, very beautiful 
indeed ; Black Basin Spring, into whose depths we could see 
far down; Spouter, which boils intensely and constantly; 
Sunset Lake, 250 feet across ; Emerald Pool, the hand- 
somest and prettiest thing in the park, but only when the sun 
shines upon it. In it one can find any color he can think of, 
tints and colors of exquisite beauty. I w^alked round and 
round that glorious spring with constant exclamations of 
delight. I felt that if my time had come to die and if I had 
my choice of routes to heaven, I would as soon plunge into 
that heavenly pool and go home that way as in any other 
way. 

On Sunday we did indeed have an evening service in 
one of the tents, but most of the day we worshipped in one 
of God's temples that was heated by steam and hot water. 

On Monday we saw Kepler 's Falls in Firehole River and 
Lone Star Geyser, with its fine cone twelve feet high. I 
climbed it in spite of hot steam coming out of small orifices, 
Shoshone Lake and Basin, with their 336 springs, and the 
distant wild and rugged Teton Mountains. 

[i87] 



MY MOUNTAINS 



We saw many beautiful flowers by the road, lupines 
larkspurs, monkshood, columbines of delicate cream color, 
Indian paint brush, wild geranium, fire weed, fringed gen- 
tians, golden rod, asters, harebells, etc. It was often difficult 
to decide whether to look up and off at the wonderful scen- 
ery, or down by the road side at the wonderful flower beds. 

At Lakeview we get our first view of Yellowstone Lake, 
300 feet beneath us, gemmed with its green islands and 
bordered with green forests and picturesque mountains, 
covering 150 square miles, 300 feet deep, 1700 in one place, 
7785 feet above the sea, the highest large lake in our country. 
There are seven geyser basins around the lake and 100 
springs, sixty-six of them on Thumb Bay, where we lunched. 
We saw the famous hot spring in the lake, where one can 
catch a fish, then swing it over into the spring and cook it 
on the hook. Deer are seen here abouts and bears come 
around the tents at night. There is danger around some of 
the springs, danger of breaking through the crust and sink^ 
ing into pools of hot water or mud. 

Thirty-five miles on the lake in a little steamboat is a 
delightful ride. We stop at Dot Island to see the herd of 
buffalo, and camped that night at the lake outlet, where the 
Yellowstone River starts full-fledged on its long journey. 
While others fished I gathered agates from the pebbly beach. 
They keep better than fish do. 

After supper we climbed Elephant's Back, 1100 feet 
high. In one place I suddenl}^ sank to my knee in soft mud, 
but quickly extricated myself. We had a pitch-pine camp- 
fire that night and then slept soundly, not hearing the bears 
that were around in the night. 

Tuesday we rode down the Yellowstone River to the 
Canon, eighteen miles. We saw the Mud Volcano, the most 

[■88] 



1 



« 



YELLOWSTONE PARK 

horrible thing we saw in the park, a pit thirty feet deep 
on a steep hillside, thick mud boiling like pudding in the 
bottom, escaping steam every minute or less, with diabolical 
spitefulness squirting wads and streams of horrid hot mud 
of a leaden color and giving off horrid sulphur fumes. The 
whole thing seemed infernal, as though demons were run- 
ning it. It seemed wierd, uncanny, horrid, and it made me 
shudder. But the Paint Pots made me laugh. In them 
nature was in a funny mood, drawing smiles and laughter 
from every visitor. 

A few rods from the mud volcano, under a green, red 
and yellow stone arch, flowed a clear stream from a spring 
of hot water. The water escaped through sandstone and 
kept clear. In the Mud Volcano it tried to escape through 
a bed of clay, which it turned to mud and then tried to vomit 
it forth, its vomitings ever falling back into its own mouth. 

At Sulphur Mountain we saw a sulphur spring, fifteen 
by twenty feet, temperature 197°, that was boiling furiously 
and constantly throwing up water several feet. In the rim 
deposit there were some forty tons of sulphur. I burnt my 
fingers trying to pick up a small piece of crystallized sul- 
phur. The escaping steam was invisible. Thus nature re- 
proved me for a very -slight violation of government regula- 
tions. 

For two nights and all of Wednesday we camped in a 
pine grove at the Canon, between the Upper and the Lower 
Falls, which I have described in chapter six, and the Canon 
in chapter nine. 

Bears. After seeing the Falls and the Canon it was but 
a step from their sublimity to the ridiculousness of the bear 
show. The bears usually come at about dusk to eat the gar- 
bage carried from the hotel kitchen out to the edge of the 

[189] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

forest and dumped there for their benefit. To see the bears 
was part of the program, and so we went and sat on the hill- 
side near the bears ^ dining room. A common black bear 
was somewhat nervously picking out the choice bits. A cin- 
namon bear came out of the woods and the black bear wisely 
retired. The cinnamon bear ate rapidly with one eye on the 
woods. Soon three big silver-tip bears came tumbling and 
rolling like huge hogs down the hill, evidently fearing that 
nothing would be left for them. The cinnamon bear retired 
ten or fifteen rods and watched proceedings. With my 
strong glass I brought them all up quite close. Some one 
asked me what I would do if the bears made a dash for me. 
I replied, "I would reverse my glass and look at them 
through the other end." 

As we sat on the ground, whispering so as not to scare 
awa}^ the bears, a richly dressed foreign lady passed by us 
and swept in a stately manner down into the bear pit and 
sat down not far from the bears. The bears retired. I went 
and courteously told her that the bears were afraid of her ; 
she retired. I said to a lady near me: "Now remember the 
order of retiring. The cinnamon bear chased away the black 
bear; the silver-tips chased away the cinnamon; then the 
lady from Europe chased away the silver-tips." ''Yes," 
said she, "and Mr. Cross chased away the lady from 
Europe, and now the question is : who will chase away Mr. 
Cross?" 

Soon darkness chased us all to our tents, where we had 
our last camp fire for that trip, telling our last stories and 
singing our last songs. 

Since I was in the park the Government has built a road 
down the Yellowstone River and reached a part of the park 
east of the river, where are some interesting things, that I did 

[190] 



i 



YELLOWSTONE PARK 

not see. Perhaps the most interesting are the fossil forests. 
The side of a mountain has been washed or worn away and 
twelve or fifteen different forests have been revealed, some of 
the fossil trees being ten feet in diameter and indicating an 
age of 500 years. Each forest in its turn sprang up, grew for 
centuries, then was overwhelmed and buried by a flow of lava, 
on whose surface in due time another forest grew, ran its 
course and was buried, and so on for uncounted ages. It is 
a very wonderful and most interesting geological story that 
nature tells so plainly on that mountain side. 

Summary. Off there on the mountains and in the clouds, 
at an average height of a mile and a half, is a true Wonder- 
land, one of America 's great pleasure parks, of a size becoming 
a great nation about which there is nothing small. We, the 
people, own that park and we hold it in trust for coming 
generations. 

The stratified foundations of it, layer upon layer, were 
laid far back in very ancient geological ages. Up through 
those foundations, in ages more modern but still very remote, 
vast streams of molten rock broke forth and covered thousands 
of square miles to the depth of thousands of feet. Very slowly 
those molten beds were cooled, while the fiery streams burst 
forth again and again. The ice age came and parts of that 
area were covered with great beds of ice, but even they did not 
cool all those heated rocks, for to this day they are hot enough 
down in their depths to make boiling hot the vast quantities of 
water which, from winter snows and summer rains, are per- 
colating into those hidden crevices and cavities. 

The waters, both hot and cold, have eroded the whole 
region, carving it into hills and valleys, and have cut great 
gorges through which great rivers flow. Dense forests have 
sprung up through which wild life wanders at will with none 

[191] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

to molest or make them afraid, protected as they are by the 
Government. 

Thousands of hot springs gnsh np through the rocks, their 
waters wonderfully clear, even when bearing in solution 
countless tons of lime and silica, part of which is deposited 
in great mounds and in curiously carved and gracefully 
curved cups and cones. Hundreds of geysers, at periods 
varying from a few seconds to a few days, gush and spout 
and throw their boiling water into the air. Their myriads of 
glittering drops manufacture sunshine into rainbows, while 
the rainbows drop into the springs and pools and are diffused 
as lovely colors that defy writer's pen and painter's brush to 
describe them. 

Myriads of rare wild flowers that have caught their colors 
also from the rainbow, birds of stately flight, swift darting 
trout, sylvan lakes hid in the forests, and one lake of regal 
size that was hid for ages among the great mountains, tiny 
cascades and mighty waterfalls, shady dells and great gorges 
cut through the rocks, trees turned to agate and amethyst and 
cliffs of volcanic glass, — these all add to the charms of our 
great playground. Mountain ranges guard it round about and 
stately peaks stand like sentinels within. A mighty nation 
also stands guard over it and says to all vandals and extor- 
tioners and profiteers and game slaughterers : ' ' Hands off. ' ' 
To that park come every year increasing multitudes of pil- 
grims from America and Europe and from the Orient to 
revel in its varied charms. More and more do it and our 
other national parks become important factors in the scientific, 
esthetic and hygienic education of a great nation. To that 
"Wonderland may it be the privilege sometime of many of 
my readers to go, and I would that it were my privilege to 
go again. 

[192] 



CHAPTER XVII 
THE YOSEMITE 

I AM sure that if John Muir were living he would not 
resent it at all if some eastern scribe, after a brief 
visit, should write about the Yosemite Valley, which belonged 
and belongs to Muir more than to any other one person. He 
would gladly welcome new partners in the spiritual owner- 
ship of that glorious valley of world-wide fame. And I am 
equally sure those of us who so greatly love the Colorado 
mountains would be very glad if John Muir could have 
given us a book about them, or even one of his matchless 
mountain essays about some feature of them. If he never 
saw them in the flesh I hope he may visit them in the spirit. 
I am sure he would appreciate them. He could not help it. 
The true lover of mountains can appreciate a hill after seeing 
a mountain. Not that the Colorado mountains are hills, com- 
pared with any others, for Colorado has more mountains over 
14,000 feet high than are found in all the rest of the United 
States and of Canada. Of the fifty four of that height in the 
United States forty two are in Colorado. 

I hesitate to write about Yosemite. It is some like writ- 
ing about Spring, or about Niagara Falls. Yet I feel I must 
add my brief experiences of its charms, as one who loved it 
long before he saw it, and since he saw it has loved it more 
than ever, and does not hesitate to call it one of his own 
mountain valleys. 

[193] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

I think it was when I was in colleg'e, and perhaps after 
the Civil War, that I first read about Yosemite. It captured 
my imagination. In June 1873 Major Durham lectured on 
Yosemite to the students of Oberlin College. He said there 
was a fall 3860 feet high, that in one place one could 
drop a stone and it would fall straight down 6000 feet, that 
from the valley, or perhaps he said from the near-by moun- 
tains, one could see the Pacific Ocean, also Mount Hood 900 
miles away, and Pike's Peak, statements which I now know 
to be absurd. But let none of us who write abount the moun- 
tains throw stones at him unless we are sure that we ourselves 
never exaggerated mountain heights and distances. He said, 
flowers bloomed in Yosemite the year round. He told of a 
triangular three-cornered and three-colored lily, probably the 
Mariposa lily, which afterwards we saw so often and admired 
so much in Colorado. 

From that time, for forty years more or less, I had a 
great desire to see Yosemite. Stereopticon pictures, often 
looked at, kept the desire alive. All things, they say, come 
to those who wait, and at last my opportunity came while 
visiting in Southern California. In fact the chief of several 
reasons for going to California in 1912 was to visit Yosemite. 
From Los Angeles to Merced was an all night ride. From 
Merced to El Portal took three and one-half hours . That 
night I watched, enchanted, a remarkable moonrise through 
clouds over the mountains. It had the appearance of a great 
fire beyond the range. There was an artist among the tour- 
ists. ' ' Did you see it T ' I asked him the next morning. 

' ' Did I see it ? I Avouldn 't have missed it for a thousand 
dollars," he replied. 

It rained hard that night and early the next morning. 
' ' Oh, " thought I, ' ' after waiting forty years to see Yosemite 

[194] 



THE YOSEMITE 

is my visit to be spoiled by rain?" Eight or ten miles in a 
stage took us from the hotel at the railroad terminus into the 
valley. The rain had stopped. It had rained so much that it 
gave us many fine extra cascades and falls tumbling over 
into the valley, and there were many fine cloud effects. So 
after all I was thankful for the rain. 

After admiring the beautiful Bridal Veil Fall, which 
drops 620 feet at the point where we enter the main valley, we 
pass El Capitan. Glorious El Capitan! It rises 3600 feet, 
straight up into the sky. At first I could not see the top of it, 
but soon among the fleecy clouds playing around its summit I 
saw the whole mountain of rock in all its glory. It stands 
there, or sits, more than two-thirds of a mile high, calm and 
serene, but sublime, overpowering, magnificent, glorious ! 

The scenery had been constantly growing finer as we 
came up the Merced River, and when we entered the real 
Yosemite at Bridal Veil Falls I felt if I had to turn around 
then, and go back, I was fully repaid for my trip thus far. 

The Yosemite season opened that day. May 1st, and I was 
the first one to register at Curry's Camp, several miles up the 
valley. That afternoon I went with another tourist on a walk 
of about eight miles by a good trail up nearly to the Yosemite 
upper fall. The trail seemed to be, and doubtless was, entirely 
safe, but from the valley it is seen to follow a narrow ledge 
on the side of a lofty precipice. There are precipices both be- 
low and above the trail. 

The upper fall is one of the highest and finest in all the 
world. In one sheer fall it drops 1430 feet, a height of nine 
Niagaras piled one on top of the other. The lower fall drops 
320 feet, or two Niagaras more, while between those two falls 
there is a series of cascades with a fall of about 600 feet, the 
entire descent of Yosemite Falls being nearly half a mile. 

[195] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

Much snow was melting on the mountains and all the water- 
falls were at their best. Look ! Look and admire, my soul, 
as often and as long as possible, at those world-famed water- 
falls, and make a mental picture of them to carry through life. 

The most wonderful thing John Muir, whose word can- 
not be doubted, tells about that upper fall, Avhich he studied 
for years, is that he once saw the volume of water about half 
way down suspended in the air, by some immense air pressure 
underneath, as long as it took him to count one hundred and 
ninety. Then the accumulated mass of water fell with a 
mighty crash. Would that I had been there to see and to hear. 

There was a heavy frost that night. I never slept in a 
tent on a colder night, but I slept well. The next day was 
pleasant. Three of us took a lunch and were gone ten hours 
on a trip up and back, about ten miles, on foot of course, go- 
ing to the Happy Isles, past the very regular and graceful 
Vernal Falls, where the Merced River drops 320 feet, another 
double Niagara, then on beneath Liberty Cap to the top of 
Nevada F'all, where the same Merced River drops, or rather 
tumbles and slides, 620 feet, four more Niagara heights. 
Next to Yosemite Fall it is perhaps the most interesting fall 
in the valley. What wonderful scenery between and below 
those two waterfalls ! Such rocks ! Such precipices ! Such 
river torrents ! Such combinations of grand and beautiful ! 
Our feet were sore that night but our souls were uplifted. 
We had had such a square meal, yes, such a "royal gorge" 
of scenery as comes to one but rarely. 

Early the next morning we three young men, whose av- 
erage age was seventy years, walked up to Mirror Lake. We 
found the lake so quiet that it perfectly reflected the great 
canon walls and mountain summits, especially the Half Dome, 
or Tissiack, which John Muir says is the "most beautiful and 

[196] 



THE YOSEMITE 

most sublime of all the wonderful Yosemite rocks, rising in 
serene majesty from flowery groves and meadows to a height 
of 4750 feet," also Clouds' Rest, which is a mile in height, 
and Mount Watkins, which guards the eastern end of the 
valley as El Capitan guards the western end. 

We were there in time to see the sun rise from behind the 
Half Dome and be reflected like a brilliant sapphire in the 
lake. It was exceedingl}^ beautiful, and as the Dome side was 
sloping I saw it repeated several times by stepping back a 
few feet or rods into the shade of the Dome. 

Then it took us an hour to climb Sierra Point, from 
whence we could see Yosemite, Vernal, Nevada and Ilillouette 
Falls. 

In forty-eight hours, one day and parts of two others, 
we three men walked about twenty-eight miles, with much 
hard climbing. We did not climb to Glacier Point. There 
was too much snow on the heights and too little time in the 
valley. The length of our stay was brief, but we saw much 
and will long remember what we saw. They were what Muir 
would call "divinely glorious days." 



[197] 



CHAPTER XVIII 
DEATH AND LIFE IN THE MOUNTAINS 

THERE is danger in the mountains, some peculiar dangers 
that are unknown on the plains. The law of gravitation 
holds good everywhere and if it gets the opportunity it does 
not hesitate to pull a man down a precipice, or a great mass 
of snow or rock down on a mining camp. Men who wantonly 
disregard that law can expect no favors, and the innocent 
often suffer with the guilty. 

Many years ago a man was visiting around Colorado 
Springs and suddenly disappeared. When his friends missed 
him they came and thoroughly searched the surrounding 
mountains, but could not find him. They knew he had some 
$10,000 on his person and they naturally concluded he had 
met with foul play. Years passed and finally some one found 
his body at the foot of a precipice. The money was on his 
dried skeleton and was restored to his friends. 

When in Redwell Basin in the Elk Mountains I saw the 
place on the edge of the surrounding wall of rock where a 
few days before, a young man fell one or two hundred feet 
to his death. He was prospecting with an older man who 
cautioned him about going too near the edge. The young 
man replied with an oath and stepped a little nearer. The 
rock gave way and he fell. 

Around Leadville there were left many abandoned pros- 
pect holes and shafts, some of them quite deep. The winter's 

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DEATH AND LIFE IN THE MOUNTAINS 

wind drifted snow over the tops of the holes. A miner, pros- 
pector, or engineer, would come along, unwittingly step on 
the snow, break through and drop to his death, perhaps a slow 
death by starvation, or drowning. Finally the state legis- 
lature took up the matter of compelling owners to properly 
cover such places. 

The inmates of a mountain cabin are sitting quietly 
around the fire, or peacefully sleeping at dead of night. They 
are startled by an ominous roar that grows louder and louder ; 
they hear the snapping and crashing of large trees ; they turn 
pale and ask — ' ' What is that ? ' ' but before the words are 
out of their lips the great cruel mass of packed snow, trees 
and rocks crushes in the cabin and sweeps everything into 
the valley below. I saw the place at Woodstock, Colorado, 
where, at 6 p. m., March tenth, 1884, an avalanche started on 
the mountain above, mowed a great swath through the forest, 
struck the section house and swept thirteen persons into 
eternity, the widow Doyle, her six children and six men. 
Again and again such accidents have occured in the moun- 
tains. A rescuing party of strong men bound on their snow 
shoes, made their way over deep snows, found all the bodies, 
tied them on sleds, and single file descended the valley to 
Pitkin. 

One winter a dozen men with their cabin and mining 
machinery were swept away and not one was left alive to tell 
the story. As they were in a lonely spot it was many days 
before the disaster was known. 

A mail carrier started one day to carry the mail, which 
was a Christmas mail, from one mining town to another. He 
never reached his destination. Suspicious people hinted that 
he had stolen the mail. The next summer the sun uncovered 
his body. He had been caught in a snowslide. The mail was 

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MY MOUNTAINS 

mildewed and behind time, but it was all there and was duly 
forwarded and delivered. Sometimes an avalanche will come 
down a mountain, cross a wide valley and stream and climb 
part way up the opposite mountain, and perhaps destroy a 
cabin that was supposed to be in a perfectly safe place. 

A miner was going" to his cabin one night. Three more 
steps and he would have been safe, but a snowslide struck 
him and he was buried beneath it. A few months later they 
found his body just where they had been chopping wood over 
it for months. 

At a certain spot above Ouray a man showed me the 
spot where a ''miracle^' occurred the winter before. A 
snowslide crossed a road and swept a snow shoveler with 
shovel in hand into the gorge below. They could not find his 
body and he was given up as dead and was so reported. A 
day or two later he appeared at a near-by cabin. The snow 
had not been so hard packed but that he could breathe and 
move his arm. The shovel was still in his hands and after a 
long time he shoveled himself out. 

Three snow-shovelers on one railroad lagged behind their 
companions. A snowslide struck them. Their bodies were 
found the next summer. 

In midsummer I walked across the top of a canon a 
hundred feet deep. It was still packed full of hard snow. 
A man told me that it always turned his hair a little grayer 
to go through that valley in the winter. Sometimes a gust 
of wind, a human voice, or the lighting of a bird on the snow 
will start a snowslide. How many times the message has 
gone to some man's friends: "He is in the mountains dead." 

One day my son and myself walked eleven miles from 
Lake Wellington down to the Platte Canon, where we took 
the train for Denver. On our walk we were caught in the 

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i 



DEATH AND LIFE IN THE MOUNTAINS 

rain and got under a big rock. It continued to rain. When 
we reached Denver about dark we looked back to the moun- 
tains and foot hills from whence we had come, and saw heavy 
clouds lit up by frequent lightning flashes. Evidently a big 
storm was raging in the foot hills twenty miles away. But 
not until we saw the paper the next morning did we learn 
that, so far as loss of life was concerned, it was the most dis- 
astrous storm that Colorado had ever experienced. The 
"cloudburst," or avalanche out of the skies, had swept 
through Morrison and drowned many campers and people in 
summer cottages. Terrible thunder storms sometimes rage 
in the mountains and at times they seem very close to us, 
and they are close, but the same is true on the plains and 
prairies. 

The danger from wdld beasts in our mountains is negli- 
gible. Let them alone and they will let you alone as a rule. 
In all my years of mountain experiences I saw only one 
rattlesnake and that one was on the plains. I saw bears but 
twice, outside of yellowstone Park, and in both cases they 
preferred to retreat. There are mosquitos sometimes but gen- 
erally the nights are too cool for them to operate very ex- 
tensively. Sometimes there are bad men around, but there 
is no such danger from them as in our great cities. The 
people one meets in the mountains, whether natives or tour- 
ists, are generally neighborly and even kind. But let no 
one shun the mountains because of danger in them. Danger 
and death are on the plain also, and in towns and cities, 
while there is abundant life and safety in the mountains. 
How can it be otherwise when the air is so pure and so 
charged with ozone, when there is so much sunshine and such 
pure cold water, and when there is so much incitement to 
healthy effort, as in following up a stream to its source, climb- 

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MY MOUNTAINS 

ing a mountain, fishing-, and digging for crystals, — tiling 
that make one forget his cares and troubles and revel in the 
pure fun of existence? 

At Colorado Springs I have known two years to pass 
without our failing to see the sun every day, and I have 
counted twenty-four "picnic days" in the month of March, 
days so pleasant and sunny we could go to the mountains 
for picnics. And what a variety of splendid picnic grounds 
there is, scattered all through the mountains ! 

When the angel brought Lot out of Sodom the Lord said 
to him: "Escape for th}^ life: look not behind thee, neither 
stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountains lest thou 
be consumed." The mountains were a place of safety for 
him and his family, and in more ways than one the moun- 
tains are places of safety for people now. 

One day I was coming from the mountains to Denver 
on the cars. Sitting near me was a mother with a little child 
that looked as rosy and healthy as any child need to look. 
The mother said, when she took her child to the mountains, 
a few weeks before, she was sick and puny and near to death. 
The doctor told her to flee to the miountains for the life of 
her child. She did so and those good mountain doctors. Dr. 
Pure Water, Dr. Cocl Nights, Dr. Pure Air and Dr. Quiet, 
had taken her child in hand and cured her, even as they have 
cured so many others. Many children are living today who 
would not be living if their parents had not taken them to 
the mountains, and many are in their graves who would be 
alive if they could have spent a few weeks in the mountains. 
And the same is true of older people. 

I met a man one day who had just come from an eastern 
city where the nights were so hot he had not been able 

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DEATH AND LIFE IN THE MOUNTAINS 

for a whole week to get a good night's rest. How he enjoyed 
the unbroken slumber which the cool nights in the moun- 
tains brought to him ! Sunstrokes are not known in the moun- 
tains. The sun is quite warm sometimes, but it does not smite 
the brain. 

When the cholera breaks out in the east or the yellow- 
fever in the south, as they have not lately but possibly might 
sometime, all the people who can do so, except some brave 
physicians and nurses and ministers, leave the cities and 
towns and flee to the country, to the upland regions, to the 
hills and the mountains. They flee for their lives lest they 
be consumed in the cities of the plain. 

And in the future, now that there are so many railroads 
leading to the Rocky Mountains, when it is unusually hot 
in the great populous, rich valley of the Mississippi, or when 
an epidemic is raging there, great crowds of people will flee 
to the mountains. Though they have to travel a thousand 
miles or more they will not tarry in the plain. From afar 
their eyes will see the snow-capped peaks and ranges and they 
will hasten to breathe the pure air and walk by the crystal 
streams of the glorious mountains. 

The great White Plague, tuberculosis, is always with us. 
God grant that it may not always be true. There are pre- 
ventive remedies for it, especially nourishing food and life 
in the open air. The latter is best secured in the upland and 
mountain regions of our country. Many thousands of lives 
have been saved, or greatly prolonged, by going to Colorado 
or to other mountain states, though I have buried many who 
went too late. The great white mountains and the great green 
forests reach out healing and helping hands to possible or 
actual victims of the great White Plague. 

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MY MOUNTAINS 

Let us thank God for the mountains, for the good that 
awaits us in them, and for the blessings which their cool 
breezes and crystal streams carry over the great plains where 
most of the people must live. The mountains are a type of 
all that is grand and glorious and secure, they have always 
been the home of liberty and freedom. 

''The mountains shall bring peace to the people." 



[204] 



CHAPTER XIX 
MOUNTAIN MISCELLANIES 

I PUT into this chapter some miscellaneous facts and ex- 
periences about mountains that do not seem to belong 
in any of the other chapters, or which have been but briefly 
referred to in them. 

A Wedding in High Life. It was about 8700 feet high, 
in the woods, on the Crystal Beds, many miles in the rear of 
Pike's Peak. My old mineral friend, the prospector, whom I 
had often visited in his mountain cabin, wrote that Ms 
daughter was to be married in June and desired to have me 
perform the ceremony. If I would come he promised to fill 
my lungs with ozone and my pockets with crystals. The 
inducements were strong and I went. The wedding day, to 
suit my convenience, was Friday, just as good a day, I told 
them, as any other on which to be married, and a little better 
since superstitious people avoid that day. 

The bride wished to be married under a great pine on a 
hill near the cabin. It was a sightly spot, commanding dis- 
tant views of Pike's Peak Range, Sangre de Christo and 
Puma and Park Ranges. Miles away rose the smoke of 
Cripple Creek, the great gold camp. The rain ceased long 
enough for the wedding. The old prospector and myself 
headed the procession as we marched to the hill-top. The 
bride's name was Delphine. Other children in the family 
bore such classic names as Athena, Mentor, Minerva, etc. It 
was all very romantic. I added to my brief marriage service 

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MY MOUNTAINS 

a few passages from my small book of promises, and I found 
myself reading to the happy couple the words: "Let not 
your heart be troubled, be not afraid." Both groom and 
bride got in several extra affirmative answers as I slowly 
asked of each the lengthy question that is usually answered 
by one 'yes' at its close. It Avas an original innovation that 
bound them more strongh^ as man and wife, for affirmatives 
do not destroy each other, as negatives sometimes do. 

The bride wore a dainty hat Avhich she had made 
herself, and on it was a fine bouquet of artificial columbines, 
which, without any instruction, she had learned to make 
herself, sending away for silk of just the right color for the 
purple sepals. She was a born lover of mountains and 
flowers. 

The piece-de-resistance on the heavilj^ loaded table was 
a huge cake made by the bride. It represented Crystal Peak, 
near which she had lived since childhood. When we rose 
from the table it had been well tunneled and excavated. 

I selected a fine lot of crystals from the boxes of them 
that I found in the yard. As we came down the mountain 
road that afternoon the thunder was crashing around us 
among the rocks and hills. Our train passed through a 
snowstorm on the Divide. The next morning, June fifteenth, 
there were six inches of snow where the wedding 
had been, and ten inches at Cripple Creek. Pike's Peak was 
gloriously white with newly fallen snow. But neither many 
waters nor much snow could quench the love of the newly 
married couple as they started on a long journey to become 
pioneers in Idaho, as her parents had been in Colorado. 

A Blossoming Desert. I was riding one day through San 
Luis Park on the cars. A friend called my attention to the 
view from opposite windows of the cars, saying: "Look on 

[206] 



MOUNTAIN MISCELLANIES 

this picture and then on this." On one side was the barren 
sandy plain. It had received no water for a long time. The 
little bmiches of grass had dried np, leaving only cactus and 
sage brush. The view stretched away for miles, a dry and 
drear}^ prospect. 

On the other side was a beautiful farm, on which wheat 
and grass and garden vegetables were gTowing luxuriantly. 
It did one 's eyes good to look in that direction. On one side 
of the train was a dry desert ; on the other side that which 
had been a dry desert Avas blossoming as the rose. What 
made the difference? Water. One side was irrigated and 
the other Avas not. 

A large part of the dry plains east of the mountains, and 
many valleys in the mountains, are blossoming every year 
now Avith edible grains, luscious fruits and beautiful flowers. 
For ages the suoav had fallen on the mountains and the Avater 
had floAved doAvn the rivers in great plenty, but it had not 
floAved over the desert ground and soaked into it. When 
men took charge of it, as God had intended, they dug ditches, 
big and small, and coaxed and guided the Avater out over the 
dry plains and then the desert grcAV green and blossomed 
and bore fruit. And so it Avill continue Avhile man remains 
there and as long as suoav falls on the mountains. 

No Water and Plenty of Water. One day I visited a new 
town east of the mountains. It was on what was a part of 
the Great American Desert, so called. I found the people 
in the toAvn, and all Avho had taken up land for miles around, 
Avere getting all their Avater for themselves and their horses 
and cattle from the Avater tank at the depot, Avhich Avas 
kept filled Avith water brought from a distance on the cars. 
There Avas great rejoicing in that toAvn Avhen, at a depth. 

[207] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

of over two hundred feet, water was struck in a well which 
the people had united in digging. 

I traveled once for a long distance in Arizona over a 
desert region, and so far as I could see the principal freight 
traffic on that road consisted in hauling water in big tanks 
on flat cars to the different stations. 

I spent a few days at a farm house on the frontier where 
we had no water to drink except the warm w^ater brought 
a mile or more from a small river. It was exceedingly hot 
weather and I was thirsty all the time. How I enjoj^ed the 
good cool water when I returned to where I could get it 
again ! 

When the pioneers crossed the great plains in the earh^ 
days they often suffered very much, and some of them died, 
for want of water. They found it a dry and thirsty land. 

In the desert of Zin the hosts of Israel suffered greatly 
because there was no water. Some of them died. Their 
leader, Moses, at God's command, took a rod and smote a 
great rock and the water came out abundantly to the great 
joy of the multitude. 

Out of that great continental rock, we call the Rocky 
Mountains, smitten by various processes of nature, there 
flows an abundance of water. Go where one will in the 
mountains I have written about, and he cannot get far away 
from cool springs, little rills, foaming brooks, quiet lakes 
or roaring streams ; especially in the spring and eavly sum- 
mer. In a walk of a few miles I have often crossed stream 
after stream of water flowing down the mountain side. It is, 
as was said of Canaan, '^A land of brooks of water, of foun- 
tains and depths that spring out of vallej^s and hills." That 
is not true of all mountain regions, but it is true of my moun- 
tains. Often the thirsty traveler on the plains, in the terrific 

[208] 



MOUNTAIN MISCELLANIES 

heat of mid-summer, has lifted up his eye and looked at the 
far-away mountains, whose peaks were white with snow, and 
thought longingly of the sparkling streams of cold water 
leaping down their sides. When he reaches the mountains 
how he revels in the abundance of good water ! Water is the 
best mineral that God ever made, for it is a mineral. 

Irrigation. The farmer near the mountains is at work 
ploughing the dry ground in the hot sun. He wipes the 
sweat from his brow and looks off and up at the great moun- 
tains fifty miles away, more or less. He sees the gorges full 
of snow and the great drifts and fields of snow miles in 
length. He may join us in admiring their beauty as thus 
seen from afar, but he has a very practical reason for ad- 
miring them. He knows, through the summer months, the 
sun will melt most of that snoAv; the power of gravitation 
will draw the water down, and through the ditches that have 
been dug it will fiow to his farm. Under his guiding hand it 
will flow over the gentle slopes of his fields, and so he be- 
lieves ; he has faith, that he will get a crop. When the right 
time comes he ploughs or digs smaller ditches ; he wades 
around in the mud and sees that no spot is left without 
water. If good rains come they help, and perhaps save him 
some work, but he does not depend on them so long as he 
can see the snow on the mountains. In a very practical sense 
it is ''beautiful snow" to him. If it is so far away that he 
cannot see it, still he has faith it is there and that it will 
melt and flow to his very doors. 

Unfailing Springs. There are many springs that do fail, 
some in the dry season of the year when they are most 
needed, and others in unusually dry years. But there are 
other springs that fail not. They keep bubbling up and 
pouring out their crystal waters through all the months and 

[209] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

through the dryest years. I found one such spring in the 
Park Range, at the foot of a steep mountain. Little or no 
rain had fallen in the valley or on the hills for many months, 
but right out of the rocks there bubbled up such a quantity 
of cool, clear water that, as it flowed away, it made a large 
stream. After a long and wear^^ w^alk I sat by that spring 
to eat my lunch, thankful for the spring whose waters failed 
not. 

I was riding once through a long valley. At the road- 
side I saw a very small stream of water. I passed on a little 
way and looked again and, behold, it was a large and swiftly 
flow^ing stream. Right in the bottom of the creek, was a 
great spring of warm water bubbling up out of the earth. 
Down to that point the creek might perhaps go dry, but from 
that point on, its waters failed not. Such a spring when 
found in a desert region, or in a dry and thirsty land, makes 
an oasis that refreshes man, bird and beast. Trees and 
flowers grow up around it. It becomes a great blessing. 

A traveler asked the people in a certain village where 
they got their water. 

"Out of the well," they said. 

"But what do you do when the well is dry?" 

"Why then we go to the spring in the meadow." 

"But when that fails what do you do." 

"Then we go to the big spring up on the mountain side." 

"And what when that spring fails?" asked the man. 

"That spring never fails," was their reply. 

Lost Streams. One cannot travel far on the western 
plains or in the mountains without seeing streams that are 
dry. The channels are there but there is no water in them. 
The water runs in the wet seasons, or after heavy rains, but 
in dry times the streams are lost. Follow the channel up into 

[210] 



MOUNTAIN MISCELLANIES 

the hills and you will probably find water, and if yon go 
down stream far enough yon will come to water. But for a 
certain distance there is no water. Perhaps it is all drawn 
off to irrigate the fields, but more likely it is flowing under- 
ground through the rocks and gravel and sand. 

I know of places in the mountains where a good sized 
stream disappears for a long ways under great boulders. If 
one listens he can hear it flowing under the rocks. Some- 
times I have crawled down under those rocks and in dark 
cavernous places I have found beautiful cascades. Further 
down and away from the mountains those steams are lost in 
the sands. Dig into the sand and one is apt to find water. 
I have seen the Fountain Creek dry for a long distance when 
water was flowing freely in its upper part, and also in the 
lower part of its channel. 

In the San Luis Park many streams are lost in the 
sands, but somewhere their waters reappear and help to 
swell the volume of the Rio Grande River, which at times 
carries a great torrent of water, but at other times, further 
down, it goes dry for a hundred miles. Even the Platte 
River in Nebraska is sometimes without water above ground 
for long distances. 

Dust Storms. When a great wind fills the air with drift- 
ing snow, ''two feet of snow and all of it in the air," we call 
it a blizzard. When the air is full of driving dust and soil 
we call it a dust storm. Those who have not passed through 
one can hardly realize what they are and how disagreeable 
they can be. Great clouds of dust are carried far up into 
the air, and some of it is sifted through all the cracks and 
crevices of the doors and windows and roofs of the houses. 
One can taste the gritty dust in his mouth. It fills the car- 
pets and settles on one's books and pictures and furniture; 

[211.] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

it covers the good clothes and is left in heaps on the window 
sills and inside the doors. It makes much extra work for the 
housekeeper. In such storms the roads are swept bare and 
left as hard as stone. The wind blows sand and gravel as 
well as fine dust. I have heard the gravel rattle like hail 
against the windows. I have had it blown against my face 
with stinging force so as almost to make it bleed. It often 
cuts and wears the paint off from the sides of the houses. 
Sometimes the dirt is blown away from the grass roots. 
After a great windstorm at Colorado Spring for one or two 
days I saw drifts of sand a foot or more in depth on the 
lawns. In New Mexico I saw front j^ards in which the sand 
had drifted even with the top of the fences, just as one has 
often seen snowdrifts fence high. The sun melts the snow- 
drifts, but no sun melts the sanddrifts. The irrigating 
ditches often fill with sand during the winter and have to be 
cleaned out before the water is turned on in the spring. 

People do not venture out much in such storms. Often 
men and horses cannot see each other and there is danger of 
collision. I was on the cars once as they approached a road 
crossing on a level piece of ground. An old man and his 
wife were driving a team on the road. They tried to cross 
the track just in front of our train, which they did not see 
because of a cloud of dust, nor did they hear it. One horse 
was killed and the man was badly hurt. 

Following the Trail. One cannot stay long in a moun- 
tain region without learning the importance of following the 
trail. One day I was riding horseback on the Divide and I 
could see the road ahead of me made a great bend. I won- 
dered why it did not go on in a straight line, and I thought 
I could save time and travel by going straight across, as I 
could see no obstacle in the way. I rode along nicely for 

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MOUNTAIN MISCELLANIES 

some ways and then came suddenly to a deep precipitous 
gulch which my horse could not cross. I had to retrace my 
steps, and I said to myself: "After this I will follow the 
traiL" 

It makes a wonderful difference in climbing mountains 
whether there is a trail or not. If there is one, follow it, even 
though it takes you a long way around. I climbed Cameron's 
Cone once with some boys. There was no trail and it was as 
hard climbing as I ever had. We had a similar experience on 
Cheyenne Mountain. 

A friend and myself tramped nearly all day through 
a rough mountain region where there was no trail. When at 
last we struck a well worn trail how glad we were ! How 
good and easy that trail, rough and stony though it was, 
seemed to our tired feet ! How it rested our minds also 1 
For we did not have to keep thinking and debating where we 
should take the next steps and which way we should turn. 
We simply followed the trail until it brought us to our teni 
and our friends. 

Rolling Stones. It is great sport to roll big stones down 
the mountain side. I used to enjoy it as much as the chil- 
dren did. But one has to be very careful not to roll them 
down where, by any possibility they might hurt any one. I 
think there are laws against such sport in some states. The 
pressure of the hand will hold back a stone just as it is start- 
ing, but when it gets under full headway it carries destruc- 
tion where it goes. 

In Ajrizona there is a cactus about the shape and size of 
a barrel. A friend and myself used it in place of big stones 
in the Grand Canon. It was great sport, we thought, to see 
those vegetable barrels, of which there seemed a great plenty, 

[213] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

roll down the steep slopes and burst asunder against some 
sharp rock. 

Sometimes the big: stones get started without human help, 
especially in the spring when the ground is soft. The rail- 
roads have to be very careful then, for sometimes the stones 
fall on the track just around a curve. Twice I have been on 
a train when a big rock rolled or fell on the track just ahead 
of us. In both cases they were discovered in time to prevent 
accident, otherwdse our train might have been thrown, in 
one case into a deep river, and in the other case down a steep 
precipice. Such rolling stones have sometimes struck a pass- 
ing train. 

A man told me, he once had to run from the lunch- 
counter to catch his train that had started. He slipped on 
the icy platform and w^as hurt. The train slowed up on his 
account and just then a great rock fell on the track a little 
ahead of the train, just where it would have been if it had 
not slowed up. 

I knew a man who had a little board cabin near the 
road in Ute Pass. One day, soon after he left his cabin, a big 
rock rolled down the mountain side, struck his house fairly 
in the center and smashed it into kindling wood. It was 
fortunate for that man, he did not lie abed late that morning. 

Colorado Sunshine. Job said, he went mourning without 
the sun. I think many Colorado people feel like mourning, 
or moping at least, when they go east and fail to see the sun 
for days, or even weeks. I remember, for two whole years, 
at Colorado Springs we did not fail to see the sun every day. 
Even in March I counted twenty-six picnic days, days pleas- 
ant enough for picnic parties to go to the mountains. I have 
known September, October, November and December to pass 
with hardly a stormy day, simply day after day and week 

[214] 



MOUNTAIN MISCELLANIES 

after week of glorious sunshine. When a stormy day did 
come, it was a sort of luxury, a relief from the monotone of 
pleasant weather. What is true of Colorado is also largely 
true of its surrounding mountain states. 

Oh, the beauty and glory of an autumn or winter day of 
sunshine on the plains or in the foot hills, with the ground 
bare of snow ! The nights are crisp and cool. Roaring fires 
and heavy blankets are perchance needed. But the sun rises 
with warmth and healing in his wings and rejoices as a 
strong man to run a race. The snow-clad peaks are turned 
to a rosy red. The blood tingles through one's veins and 
one feels like jumping over fences, climbing high hills, or 
even mountains, and running for miles. Everything warms 
to new life. Oceans of glorious sunshine are poured over 
forests and plains, over mountains and valleys. If one is in 
good health mere existence at such times is a positive pleasure. 
And if one is an invalid and can be out of doors the sunshine 
and air are the best of medicines. 

The Shadow of a Great Rock. I saw once a funny pic- 
ture of an Egyptian, with the hot sands of the desert all 
around him, sitting in the shadow of a telegraph pole. Trees 
furnish a good shade usually, but some pine trees let a good 
deal of sunshine sift through their foliage. The best covert 
from a storm and the best shade from a hot sun is furnished 
by a great rock. I know one rock in the mountains under 
which there is a little room that is protected on the open 
side by thick bushes. A friend was camping out for his 
health and he made that his sleeping room. He lodged there 
every night, a lodging place that would delight John Muir 
and such as he. 

Sometimes in the mountains I have been caught in a hard 
hail or thunder storm. The trees gave but poor protection 

[215] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

and were not safe if there was lightning;, and sometimes there 
were no trees, but when I could get under a great rock, or 
in an ice cave, as I did once, then I have felt I was compara- 
tively safe. 

Once on a very hot day, I was following a little stream 
up through a dense forest and among great rocks, as large as 
houses. Under one huge rock I found a sort of cave, through 
which the little stream found its way in bright cascades, scat- 
tering its spray over mossy rocks. In that cool retreat, sur- 
rounded by the great rocks, hearing no sound but the music 
of tinkling rills, I sat in perfect comfort on that hot day. 
Under another great rock I found ice in mid-summer. 

Near some of my camping places I have found delightful 
rooms, some big and some small, cut by nature right out of 
the great rock-ledge. There, away from sun and wind, I have 
spent delightful hours. That was a beautiful picture which 
I saw at the Centennial Exhibition in 1876 at Philadelphia, 
called "The Shadow of a Great Rock." A desert stretched 
as far as the eye could reach. The hot sun was beating down 
upon it, and here and there a man or a beast of burden had 
fallen in the sands and was dying from heat and thirst. In 
the foreground was a great rock, beneath whose shadow was 
a spring of water, around which beautiful flowers bloomed. 
Some travelers who had almost perished in the desert had just 
reached the refreshing shade. In a weary land, on a hot 
scorching desert, they had found the Shadow of a Great Rock, 
and by it they were refreshed and saved. 

The Clouds and the Mountains. I would give a goodly 
sum for a gallery of pictures containing views of all the 
splendid cloud pictures, I have seen in and on the mountains. 
Some of them are photographed on my brain, but not all of 

[216] 



I 



MOUNTAIN MISCELLANIES 

them, and I wish they were all painted on canvas for others 
to see. I can here give only a few hints about some of them. 

Ajgain and again have I seen all the foot hills covered 
with clouds, while above the clouds and apparently resting 
upon them, rose the higher peaks and ranges. 

I have seen in the west a great bank of heavy clouds 
that hid all the mountains from sight except the great white 
rounded dome of Pike's Peak, which appeared up in the sky, 
resting as it were on a cloud. 

I have seen the clouds that covered the mountains break 
away in just one spot and reveal far up in the clouds a great 
rock, or a pine forest, or a beautiful valley, or a snow-white 
cascade, or an immense snowdrift, or some combination of 
those things. 

I have seen a whole bevy of white clouds floating along 
the foot of the mountains, chasing each other around the pro- 
jecting hills and playing hide and seek among the canons 
and valleys. I have seen two such bevies coming from oppo- 
site directions, meeting and commingling on the mountain 
side. 

I have seen the white-capped peaks, with all their out- 
lines distinctly drawn, projected against a thunder cloud of 
inky blackness that was rising behind them, while the golden 
sunlight was pouring down through the great bank of mist 
that lay along the front of the mountains. 

I have seen two great banks of white clouds, looking like 
immense snow banks, just over the top of a lofty canon wall, 
both moving in the same direction, but one moving much 
more rapidly than the other, as though one was a passenger 
train and the other a freight train. 

I have seen masses of white clouds rolling over a high 
mountain and suddenly disappearing as they struck a dif- 

[217] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

ferent stratum of air. On the other hand I have seen white 
clouds suddenlj^ forming, out of nothing;, as it were, and rap- 
idly growing to large size. 

Again and again I have seen sunsets on the mountains 
that gave such brilliant colors to the clouds, and such a 
variety of colors and shades of color, that if they Avere painted 
in a picture some people would not believe such sunsets were 
ever seen by mortal eyes. One such sunset I saw looking 
across the Great Salt Lake. I would rather look upon one 
such picture, painted by the Great Artist and hung in the 
western sky with great mountains for a frame Avork, than to 
visit all the picture galleries of Europe. 

And at mid-day I have seen far above the mountain tops 
fleecy clouds that were painted in diverse colors, such as red 
and blue and green, colors rarely seen on mid-day clouds. 



[218] 



XX 

MOUNTAIN RHYMES 

By calling this chapter Mountain Rhymes I hope that I 
may forestall all the criticisms of any who might criticise it if 
it was called Mountain Poetry. I think the Avonld-be critic 
must admit that the lines rhyme fairly well, even though he 
cannot admit that it is poetry. This book is made up largely 
of my personal experiences and to make it a complete record 
of my mountain experiences I must reveal how the mountains 
affected me in the matter of rhyming. 

The impulse to write these, or any other rhymes, came to 
me almost exclusively in Colorado. They are a product of 
mountain air. The eastern air has no such effect on me. I 
shall blame no one who skips this chapter in whole or in part. 
Very few of these verses have ever been in print before. Three 
of the longer ones were prepared for and read at the opening 
exercises of the Glen Park Chautauqua in 1887 and 1888. 

The mountains are full of material for true poetry, and if 
ever a true poet, like H. H. who wrote "The Singers' Hills," 
can give us a full volume of mountain poetry I shall be very 
glad. 

ROSEMMA FALLS 

Far up on the trail to the famous Peak, 

The Peak that o'erlooks the Plains 
In valley o 'er hung by the rock}^ crags, 
The crags that the sky retains, 

[219] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

Close under the brow of the pine-clad hills, 

The hills that surround their king, 
On Ruxton's precipitous, foam-flecked stream, 
The stream that the poets sing. 

In sight of the Cog-road's uplifted train. 

The train that skyward crawls. 
There tumbles and sings midst the rain and shine, 

My charming Rosemma Falls. 

Not awful, nor high, nor sublimely grand, 

Like many a famous fall. 
But pretty, and sprighth^ and white with foam, 

It breaks o'er the granite wall. 

Above the white rocks the swift waters pour, 

And hither and thither they fly, 
Round broken and water-worn boulders glide, 
Then off down the canon hie. 

And why do I say that this fall is mine? 

And why do I show with pride 
To friends and to strangers the sun-print views 

Of the fall on the mountain side? 

Because when a friend in the long ago. 
In June of the year 'seventy-eight, 
Did ask me to christen that foaming fall. 
Which nameless till then did wait, 

I gave it a name of the two combined 
Belonging to wife and me, 

[220] 



MOUNTAIN RHYMES 

The names that for aye shall be entwined, 
Rosemma's the name you see. 

Oh, dear are those falls to my wife and me, 
As o'er the white rocks they run, 

But dearer the fact that their name reveals. 
That Emma and I are one. 

THE RIO GRANDE RAILROAD 

Two thousand miles of iron rail, 

A strong and flawless band. 
Bind range to range and vale to vale 

In Colorado's land. 

The ribboned steel from blazing forge. 

In double lines of strength, 
Doth wind through many a rocky gorge, 

'er many an upland length. 

They clasp the mountain 's rock-ribbed side ; 

They cross the snowy pass ; 
They crawl through forest dark and wide ; 

They gleam in glades of grass. 

Through Roj^al Gorge, the steep cliffs under, 

They trail beside the stream. 
Where Titans forced the rock asunder. 

And gliding waters gleam. 

Far up the wide Arkansas' vale, 
Along the college mountains, 

[221] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

They pick with care a stony trail, 
Past crystal streams and fountains. 

They stretch in long and cnrveless line 

Across the mighty park; 
In sinuous curves they turn and twine 

Through canons deep and dark. 

'er frozen fields where frost is king, 

And snow for aye abides. 
Is heard their sharp metallic ring. 

Two miles above the tides. 

They search the distant coal fields out; 

Round mining camps they hover; 
The ghosts of wildest glens they rout. 

And haunted spots uncover. 

They lead us on a wondrous chase 

Around the circled maze, 
San Juan's majestic sights to face. 

And on her marvels gaze. 

They bind the mountains to the plains 

In one vast pleasure field ; 
The mines' and meadows' golden gains 

No more are treasures sealed. 

Go search ye well through every state 

In all our glorious land, 
You'll find no route of steel so great 

As is the Rio Grande. 

[222] 



MOUNTAIN RHYMES 
THE CHIPMUNK 

PxVRT I 

I lay in my hammock one day 
As still as still could be, 

When I saw a little chipmunk 
Come running down the tree. 

He searched among the rubbish 
That lay upon the ground, 

Until a piece of cracker 

Among the chips he found. 

Between his nimble hands' 
He held the precious prize, 

And sitting on his haunches 
He winked with both his eyes. 



The way he wagged his tail, 
And the way he worked his jaw, 

Engaged my whole attention 
And filled my soul with awe. 

He seemed so full of life. 

So ever on qui-vive. 
So lightning like in motion, 

So quick to take French leave. 

That I fairly fell in love 

With the dainty little creature, 
As I lay within my hammock 

And watched his every feature. 

[223] 



MY MOUNTAINS 
Part II 

I lay in my tent one morning, 

All lost in slumber deep, 
As over the distant hills, 

The sun began to peep. 

When on my canvas roof 

I heard an awful clatter, 
And opening wide my eyes 

I wondered 'what's the matter?' 

Upright I sat in bed 

And rubbed my waking eyes. 
And on the tent above 

I saw a host of flies. 

And on the tent without. 

With constant scratch and clatter, 
The chipmunks chased each other. 

And that was what 's the matter. 

They spoiled my morning nap. 
My temper sweet they spoiled ; 

I muttered something naughty, 

For my feelings — they were roiled. 

the ugly little creatures ! 
I hate their awful clatter. 

1 'd shoot them if I could, 

And that is what 's the matter. 

[224] 



MOUNTAIN RHYMES 
THE CAMPFIRE 

bring us knots of solid pitch, 

And crisp old cedar boughs ; 
And bring us logs with resin rich 

The fire imps to rouse. 

And pile them high and pile them higher 

Within our mountain camp, 
And we will have a rousing fire 

This evening, cool and damp. 

Now strike the match and start the fire ; 

Guard well the tiny flame. 
Until it leaps up higher, higher. 

In spite of wind and rain. 

come my friends and gather round 

Our campfire by the hill ; 
Come, take a seat upon the ground, 

come, whoever will. 

And never mind the stifling smoke 
That drives us round the ring ; 

We'll laugh the louder at each joke, 
We'll laugh and talk and sing. 

See how the burning pitch doth sputter. 
And how the dry boughs crackle ! 

Hark how the escaping gases mutter — 
The fire imps brook no shackle. 

[225] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

To rest the brain there's nought so good, 
There's nought so kind o' cheering, 

As crackling flames of odorous wood 
The gloom and darkness spearing. 

yes, it rests the tired brain, 

To watch the dancing fire; 
It soothes and heals the heart's sore pain, 

Like strains of heavenly lyre. 

Within the glowing fire we look, 

We look and muse and gaze, 
For 'tis to us a wondrous book, 

All full of poets' lays. 

The tongues of fire take wierdest forms. 

That vanish in a moment; 
They fly like birds, they crawl like worms. 

And writhe as if in torment. 

The fire's wierd and lurid glare 
Burns red on each bright face ; 

From distant hills the wild beasts stare. 
And seek their hiding place. 

We sing, our songs and tell our stories. 

And thrilling tales rehearse. 
Of fioods and storms and Indian forays, 

And read the latest verse. 

Among the tall and stately pines 
" The shadows shuddering creep ; 
They dance around the outer lines. 
And into darkness leap. 

[226] 



MOUNTAIN RHYMES 

They fill the woods with silent ghosts ; 

Around each bush they hover; 
They fly away like routed hosts; 

They run to darkest over. 

The hours fly fast ; low burns the fire ; 

The routed ghosts draw near; 
To pine-bough beds we '11 all retire, 

And sleep without a fear. 

The morning breaks, the sun arises — 
The world 's campfire un-ending • — 

It brings a host of glad surprises, 
Away all darkness sending. 

All burned and black the embers now, 

Of last night's cheerful blaze. 
Which gladly we shall all remember 

Through many coming days. 

On memory's hearth they're burning still 
Those airy tongues of flame — 

They cheer us now, whene'er we will, 
A fire that ne'er can wane. 



THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS 

Away from the city, the queen of the plains 
At ease in one of the Midland's new trains. 
We speed us away from the hot dusty streets. 
Far off to the mountains' enchanting retreats. 

[227] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

Along side the foot hills and past Palmer Lake 
And o'er the Divide quick time do we make, 
Then down to that place on the Fountain-qui-bonille, 
A city indeed with no city's turmoil, 

The pleasantest place in all the wide land, 
Whose record is clean and whose outlook is grand, 
Then straight toward the Peak that is known far and wide, 
As though like a javelin we'd pierce through its side. 

We hasten, all eager the mountains to view. 

But pause for a while at fair Manitou, 

Whose mineral springs and whose swift mountain brooks, 

Whose canons so deep and whose caves and quaint nooks, 

Whose forests of pine and great rocks so grand, 
And flowers — none fairer in all the land, 
And mountains by which these are all overhung, 
By thousands are seen and by many are sung. 

Then up the Ute Pass through dark tunnels we soar, 
And over wild gorges where white torrents roar. 
Until at the canon whose name is Cascade 
We stop for a day and are grandly repaid, 

By steep wooded valley, adown which pour 
The foaming white waters like those at Lodore, 
And carriage way ride to the crest of Pike's Peak, 
Which all can now take, both the strong and the weak, 

A ride which one takes with the greatest of ease 
To heights that are nearly three miles 'bove the seas. 
Unspeakably grand is the view that we gain. 
Of mountain and valley, of forest and plain. 

[228] 



MOUNTAIN RHYMES 

Then on 'neatli the shadow of high granite walls, 
Adown which is plunging the Green Mountain Falls, 
Through summer resort, where the white tents gleam 
Among the pine trees that border the stream. 

Still further we climb while the engine pants hard. 
Till breezes grow cooler and greener the sward, 
Where Manitou Park lieth off to the right, 
Whose green wooded vistas are fair to the sight ; 

While off to the east, out-manoeuvered at last. 

There rises, sublimelj^ majestic and vast, 

The mountain that only a little before 

Stood barring the west like a huge bolted door. 

And now through the park that is named after Hayden, 
And o'er crystal beds that with bright gems are laden, 
And tertiary lakebed with fossils so rare. 
And petrified forest, all stony and bare. 

Eleven Mile Canon we quickly fly through, 
AYith views ever changing and views ever new, 
Till out of its gorges, so rocky and dark, 
AYe enter with pleasure the famous South Park. 

Its smooth level floor, once the bed of a sea. 
Is thirt}' miles wide and across it we flee, 
In sight of great ranges so lofty and grand, 
That ever stand gTiarcl o'er this fairylike land. 

little we thought in the years long ago, 
When crossing the Park with our horses so slow. 
That following close on that tiresome trail 
AYe'cl fly like the wind on the Bessemer rail. 

[229] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

Regretfully leaving South Park in the rear, 
To Arkansas' valley we quickly draw near. 
Through many a deep cut in the tough, granite rock 
We glide gentl}^ down where the mountains unlock 

A scene of such beauty and grandeur sublime 
As laughs at all efforts to put it in ryhme, 
A view which, once seen, will be never forgot, 
And those w^ho can see it, happy their lot ! 

From up on the mountain side downward we look 
On fair Buena Vista by her swift flowing brook. 
And upward to Princeton's symmetrical form 
That pierceth the clouds and defyeth the storm. 

While northward and southward, to left and to right, 
The peaks of the College Range loom on our sight. 
Whose towering crags and whose fields of white snow 
Frown down on the beautiful valley below. 

Antero and Elbert, La Plata and Massive, 
With Sangre-de-Christo so distant and passive, 
Ouray and Shavano and Harvard and Yale, 
All which one can see from this iron-bound trail. 

Then upward and northward, not slacking our speed, 
We ride through the vale where the pioneer's greed 
Hath torn up the gulches and cut through the ledges 
And out of them gathered the bright golden wedges. 

The vale whose deep silence was once oft broken 
By crack of the rifle, the swift and sure token 
Of vengeance so cruel 'twixt neighbor and man. 
In merciless feud of clan against clan. 

[230] 



MOUNTAIN RHYMES 

Afar we have come, up, down and up, until 

We reach at the last far-famed Leadville, 

The camp that was known over all the wide world. 

Whose banner two miles 'bove the sea is unfurled. 

Whose mines countless millions of precious ore 
Have yielded from out their exhaustless store, 
The smoke of whose riches is seen from afar, 
As it rests in thick clouds on the light mountain air. 

strange are the tales of the lust and the greed. 
Of passion's fierce flames that the gold doth well feed ! 
And many the stories of luck, good and ill. 
This city can tell — many books they would fill. 

But stay we not here, for a wall a mile high, 
Just over the valley is touching the sky, 
And scale it we must, and most surely we can, 
For mountains are never impassable to man. 

Aicross the green valley and 'cross the clear stream 
We're borne by the measureless power of steam; 
Then upward we climb in sharp curve upon curve, 
Yet not from our aim for a moment we swerve. 

Each curve brings us nearer the blue arching sky. 
As upward like strong pinioned eagles we fly ; 
The air groweth cool and the brooklets grow small; 
The snow lies in drifts 'mongst the fir trees so tall. 

Still upward we soar to the dark timber line. 
O'er avalanche wreck, amid scenery sublime, 
Where steep are the crags that so gloomily frown, 
And still are the heights in a silence profound. 

[231] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

Farewell, ye waters that flow to the Atlantic ! , 
For straightway we plunge into caverns gigantic, 
Where dense is the darkness a half mile or more, 
As dense as Egyptian-like darkness of yore. 

Then out of the tunnel and into the light. 
And bursts on our vision a glorious sight, 
A view that is worth going far to behold, 
A view full of beauty and grandeur untold. 

Far down in the depths of the valley below 
We gaze on the surface of Lake Ivanhoe ; 
A glance, and then down round the hills we grope. 
All hail to the streams of Pacific's vast slope ! 

Clear down to the shore of the ice-cold lake, 
And downward, still downward, our way we take. 
The rill that from out of the lake doth flow 
Soon plunges far down to the wild gorge below. 

A tiny small rill at the flrst it ran : 

who ever called it the Frying Pan? 

Far down through the ' ' Devil 's Gate ' ' the scared waters hie, 

While we hug the mountains and keep near the sky. 

Until we are past the wild gate of ill name. 
And join the white waters that out of it came. 
The engine holds back and smooth glides the train; 
It glides to the vales that are golden with grain. 

It glides past the Castles, gigantic and red. 
And down through the land that the Indians did tread. 
And ever in sight of the clear mountain brook. 
Where trout are responsive to bait and to hook. 

[232] 



MOUNTAIN RHYMES 

Then up 'long the Roaring Fork where Aspen in pride 
Her mineral belt boasts, so rich and so wide, 
Where Sopris, the queenliest mountain, alone 
Uprears to the sky her magnificent dome, 

And many a snow-born crystalline stream 

Glides down through its valley with flash and gleam, 

Or leaps down the crags as white as snow 

And falls in dense mist on the rocks below. 

Retracing our path down the valley we go 
Where Roaring Fork stream to the Grand doth flow. 
Where swift are the waters that tumble and roar 
'Neath sky-piercing cliffs of the Grand's narrow door, 

The waters whose firm and unyielding fate 

Is hastening them on to the chasm so great, 

Where Glenwood's great cauldron doth bubble and steam. 

And forth from the earth flows a hot healing stream, 

Where many for health and many for pleasure 

Can swim in the plunge bath, where flows without measure 

The waters of healing and of untold worth 

From out of the depths of our good mother earth, 

The waters some fairy-like alchemist. 
With love of the sea in her heart I wist, 
With nature obeying her every command. 
With subtlest of arts and with magical wand. 

Doth bring from below in bubbling commotion. 

As salt as the surf of the distant ocean, 

That all may now take, in the flow of these fountains, 

A salt water bath in the heart of the mountains. 

[233] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

And here for a while we will rest and we'll wait, 
Till the Midland goes on to the Golden Gate ; 
Then onward we'll go and our journey renew, 
A wonderland's marvelous wonders to view. , 

seekers of pleasure and seekers of health. 

And ye who would seek for the earth 's hidden wealth, 

Ye artist who fain a new field would explore. 

And scientist seeking for earth's hidden lore, 

And ye who rejoice in the gun and the rod, 
And all who delight in the hills of our God, 
come ye from near and come ye from far 
And ride through the mountains on a Midland car. 

P. S. Alas ! The Midland did not go on to the Golden Gate. 
On the contrary a large part of the road has been 
abandoned. But the scenery through which it ran is 
still there and can be reached in other ways. 



GLORIFIED CLOUDS 

Across the South Park, o'er the distant hills. 
Whose springs are the source of the mountain rills 
That flow to the Platte through canons romantic, 
And then o 'er the plains to the far-off Atlantic, 

The sun was just rising in strength and might. 
And flooding the peaks with a rosy light. 
The clouds that across the horizon lay 
Were greeting with joy the orb of day. 

[234] 



MOUNTAIN RHYMES 

All edged and suffused with burning gold, 
They shone with a glory that cannot be told; 
They caught and transformed the rays of light 
And turned them to gold for the human sight. 

But yesterday torn by the lightnings that pierce, 
And swept by wild blasts so terrific and 'fierce, 
In glorified splendor now greet they the sun, 
Translating his glory, their work well done. 

Then downward I looked to the park below. 
Through which the Platte River doth quietly flow. 
And saw the cold mists from the streams arise, 
And dull leaden clouds forming low in the skies, 

Not glorified yet, nor uplifted high, 
Earth-born and as dull as the leaden sky. 
The sun rising high and the day growing warm, 
They'll gather and sweep in a fierce thunder storm 

Above the high peaks and across the wide plain, 
And shed on the earth an abundance of rain. 
Made pure by the lightning, their work well done. 
They'll float to the east-land to welcome the sun. 

Not glorified now, but tomorrow they'll be 
As glorious and bright as a golden sea; 
The trials of earth they must first endure 
Before they transmute the white rays so pure. 

[235] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

GLEN PARK 

Read at the opening exercises of the first Chautauqua As- 
sembly on the grounds near Palmer Lake July 4, 1887. 

From north and south, from west and east, 

In this Centennial state. 
We gather at this joyous feast. 

And in these halls we wait. 

The earth is richly dressed in green. 

The sky is robed in blue ; 
The mountains rise with noble mien. 

So old and yet so new. 

By waters clear and mountains grand 

This lovely park is bounded ; 
With earth below and heaven above, 

And by our God surrounded. 

For glory and for beauty made, 

Our God these hills did mold; 
With mighty hand their walls were laid. 

And sifted through with gold. 

The waters pure and sparkling bright 

Come leaping down the mountain. 
They shimmer with the crystal light; 

Upleap they in the fountain. 

A Gardener grouped these graceful pines ; 

A Sculptor carved these hills; 
An Artist drew and filled the lines; 

A Poet taught the rills. 

[■236] 






MOUNTAIN EHYMES 

The lines so straight that tell of duty, 
The flowers that bloom and nod, 

The curved lines so full of beauty — 
These all are full of God. 

The roar of brook and song" of bird 

Long stirred this ambient air. 
But now at last this vale has heard 

Glad words of praise and prayer. 

The rills still laugh, the birds still sing, 

The soughing pines play base. 
And they and we make echoes ring 

In this most charming place. 

With crash and roar and mighty shock 

These giant rocks were lifted, 
And 'gainst the tough old granite rock 

The waves of ocean drifted. 

The saurian reptile, huge and scaly. 

Dwelt here in shallow bay, 
And mighty monsters struggled daily 

Where children romp and play. 

The earthquakes ceased, the waves withdrew 
The gaping wounds were mended ; 

And through the fissures, old and new, 
The gold and silver blended. 

The monsters fled, the saurian died ; 
Their race became extinct; 



MY MOUNTAINS 

We find their bones well petrified, 
But not man's missing link. 

And thus through geologic ages , 

This place did God prepare ; 
In passing through so many stages 

It ever grew more fair. 

The trees grew tall, the grass grew green, 
Wild beasts did roam and roar, 

And high above the sylvan scene 
The eagles proud did soar. 

The red men came — we know not when - 
And long they roamed these dells ; 

They reared their lodge within this glen; 
These hills have heard their yells. 

The miners came in 'fifty-eight 

And sought the golden dust ; 
With courage rare they dared their fate 

And wrote: "Pike's Peak or bust." 

And then, just sixteen years ago, 
These valleys heard a scream. 

They heard the piercing whistle blow 
That brought the age of steam. 

'Twas foreordained that this broad glen 

A gathering place should be 
For women good and for true men. 

And children too, you see. 

[238] 



MOUNTAIN EHYMES 

And here, as ages come and go, 
Shall stand these hills of God, 

And birds shall sing and brooks shall flow, 
And sweetest flowers nod. 

And men will come and men depart, 

But God will leave us never; 
His AVord remains to reach the heart; 

His works abide forever. 

Let him who hath the ears to hear. 

Now listen to the song 
Which brook and bird and voices clear 

Repeat these hills among. 

And he that hath the eyes to see. 

And soul that soars above. 
Look up and out to sky and tree. 

And see that God is love. 

From north and south, from east and west. 

From country and from town. 
We gather here to get the best 

That anywhere is found. 

The streams that rise on this Divide 

Flow each a different way, 
But all will reach the ocean-tide 

And meet again some day. 

So north and south, and east and west. 
When these few days are past. 

We '11 go again and do our best. 
And all reach home at last. 

[2,39] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

THE HILLS OF GOD 

Read at the opening exercises of the Chatauqua Assem- 
bly in Glen Park, Colorado, July 10, 1888. 

"I will lift up mine eyes to the hills," 

Said Israel's sweet sing-er of old, 
"To the hills from whence cometh my help, 

Will I lift up mine eyes and behold." 

And as oft as he looked to the hills. 

From the streets that were wearily trod, 

His soul was filled with the sweetness, 
And his arm with the strength of God. 

Oh, how oft from the noise of the street. 
And how oft from the haunts of men. 

Have I gazed on the glorious hills 

Till my heart has grown young again ! 

Oh, how oft Avhen my brain was weary, 
And my heart sung a dolorous song, 

Have I looked to the hills of my God 
And my soul has again become strong ! 

And how oft as I looked at the hills, 

That were carved by the hand of the Lord, 

Have I offered this prayer of the poet, 
And repeated her soul-thrilling word : 

"Gird me tvith the strength of thy steadfast hills; 

The speed of thy streams give me; 
In the spirit that calms, with the life that thrills, 
I would stand or run for thee.'' 
[240] 



MOUNTAIN RHYMES 

And I said with a longing* of heart ; 

To the green wooded hills will I fly ; 
I will seek me a beantiful spot, 

There to dwell twixt the earth and the sky. 

I will dwell for a space where the earth 
Mounts up in green crests to the sky, 

And where heaven descends in its glory, 
In the glory of God the Most High. 

I will go for a space to that school 

Where my soul with sweet manna is fed, 

Where the Word and the Works of our God 
In the light of each other are read. 

Where the book of nature lies open wide 

With a thousand uncut pages. 
And the Bible, so old and yet so fresh, 

Still points to the Rock of Ages. 

Where the birds and the children so sweetly sing, 
And the sky wears a heavenly hue. 

Where each heart doth enshrine the love of God, 
Like the sun in each drop of dew. 

For the precious things of the lasting hills 
That were promised to Joseph of old, 

I will search with eager and steadfast look, 
For the flow^ers, the gems and the gold. 

And for precious things so exceeding great 
In the best of all books I will seek, 

[241] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

For a priceless pearl and a crystal clear, 
For a soul made pure and a spirit meek. 

To consider the lilies I'll not forget, 
Nor the heavens in which is declared 

The glory sublime of the infinite God, 
Which forever and ever is shared. 

I will lie on the lap of my mother. 
On the lap of my mother, the earth. 

Where of sweetest delights and innocent jo3^s 
To my soul there shall come no dearth. 

I will talk face to face with my Father, 
With my Father, the infinite God, 

And with him will I hold communion 
As I walk 'er the flowery sod. 

I will walk with my Elder Brother, 
I will stand in the courts of the King, 

By whose hand the whole earth is upheld, 
Whose praises I'll evermore sing. 

I will loiter in flowery valleys, 

And roam o'er the hills eternal, 
While my soul is refreshed at Elim, 

And ascends to heights supernal. 

So I sought me a beautiful spot 

Among the eternal hills, 
And I found it on mountain slope. 

Held fast by two silvery rills. 

[242] 



MOUNTAIN RHYMES 

And now lend me your ears I pray, 
While I sing of that earthly heaven, 

While I sing of the rare delights 
Of our camp of 'eighty-seven. 



OUR CAMP OF 'EIGHTY-SEVEN 

'Twas where the western plains uproll 
Their countless billows green. 
Against the rocky ranges old 
Which from afar are seen, 

On grassy slope of lofty mountain, 
With outlook o'er the plains, 
Beside the cool and sparkling fountain, 
In sight of passing trains, 

Almost two miles above the seas. 
On crest of green Divide, 
Within a grove of lonely trees. 
Where peace and rest abide — 

'Twas there we reared our canvas tent 
WJien heat of summer fell ; 
From city's roar and toil we went 
'Mongst balmy pines to dwell. 

By tree and bush and green hillside 
Our camp is well surrounded ; 
By purest streams that swiftly glide 
On either side 'tis bounded. 

[243] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

A rocky cliff of brilliant red 

Cuts off the western sky; 

The sun doth seek his rocky bed 

While yet two hours high. i 

For many a mile the canons pierce 
The wooded hills behind us ; 
Within their dark recesses, fierce 
Wild beasts perchance might find us. 

To eastward stands a Giant's Castle, 
Whose yellow rock doth crumble ; 
Through arch and cave the wild winds wrestle 
Huge rocks down steep slopes tumble. 

To north and south, o'er stretches wide, 
The gliding trains we spy; 
Around the curves like snakes they glide, 
Like winged birds they fiy. 

The bushes on the steep hillside 
Are red with luscious berries ; 
The bushes in the valleys wide 
Are black with ripened cherries. 

The fields, with brilliant flowers are bright. 
Of every hue and shade ; 
Interpret they the sun's white light 
And then they meekly fade. 

And others haste to take their place, 
A long and bright procession, 

[244] 



MOUNTAIN RHYMES 

Up towards the sun they turn their face, 
And that is their confession. 

The gentle winds are cool and soft, 
That play through odorous pines ; 
They come from snowy hills aloft; 
They sweep o'er golden mines. 

Beneath a sky of azure blue 
"We eat our daily bread; 
With manna sweet and ever new 
Our souls each day are fed. 

In rocky nook or quiet glen 

We find a place of prayer ; 

With Him who gives good gifts to men 

We hold communion there. 

In cool of day we gently row 
On Palmer's famous lake; 
Beneath the fountain, rowing slow, 
A shower bath we take. 

The merry laugh and joyous trills 
Float outward o'er the wave; 
They're echoed back from wooded hills 
Whose feet the waters lave. 

When night so cool with shadows dark 
From rocky crags doth fall. 
We hear the coyote's yelping bark 
And wild beasts answering call. 

[245] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

We watch the lightning's vivid flash 
Leap out from distant cloud; 
We hear the thunder's roar and crash 
KoU round in echoes loud. 

At close of damp and rainy days 
Big knots of pitch we bring, 
And round our camp fire 's ruddy blaze 
We sit and talk and sing. 

On bosom soft of mother earth 

We lay us down and slumber ; 

Of blessed sleep there is no dearth, 

While God our thoughts doth number. 

We search each path and pebbly knoll 
For "smoky topaz" treasures; 
And all good things that God has made 
Keep adding to our pleasures. 

Long walks we take where none may lag, 
And canons wild explore; 
We climb the high and beetling crag, 
Where daring eagles soar. 

And oft in cool Assembly Hall 
We gather with our neighbors, 
Where words of wit and wisdom fall, 
To reap the scholar's labors. 

Our cares and toils fast fade away, 
Lake mist before the sun; 

[246] 



MOUNTAIN RHYMES 

With children dear we run and play, 
And have the purest fun. 

The little ones • — they never tire 
As days and weeks glide by; 
Each day they climb a little higher; 
Almost they seem to fly. 

The faces pale grow full and round; 
The cheeks a rosy red ; 
Such appetites were never found 
'Mongst children city-fed. 

As happy weeks glide swiftly by, 
Our bodies stronger grow ; 
With clearer thought and purpose high 
Each mind and heart doth glow. 

And when one day we turned away 
From camp of 'eighty-seven, 
Our muse straightway did sing this lay 
About that earthly heaven. 

Clear cut and sharp on memory's wall, 
'Mongst many pictures hung. 
The fairest picture of them all 
Is this, so poorly sung. 

IN J. A's ALBUM 

To westward from your pleasant home 
The grand old mountains rise ; 

But where your eyes northeastward roam 
A wicked city lies. 

[247] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

may your life be pure and strong, 
Like summits robed in snow, 

As midst the city's busy throng 
About life's work you go. 



IN MY NIECE'S ALBUM 
Written on a visit to Florida from Colorado in 1888. 

From mountains high all robed in snow. 
Where cool and balmy breezes blow. 
And crystal streams forever flow, 
I come loved friends to greet 
Beside old oceans lovely strand, 
In hearing of its music grand. 
In Flora's fruitful sunny land. 
Midst orange blossoms sweet. 

When you and I and others dear. 
Have done with earthlj^ joy and fear. 
When tired feet to heaven draw near, 

And pearly gates are opened wide, 
A home shall ours forever be, 
By lofty mount and crystal sea. 
With flowers and gems for you and me. 

And love for all who there abide. 



[248] 



CHAPTER XXI 
MOUNTAINS IN THE BIBLE 

The following passages about moimtains are arranged 
in the order in which they occur in the Bible. 

On the first day of the month were the tops of the 
mountains seen. Gen. 8 : 5. 

Escape for thy life ; look not behind thee, neither stay 
thou in all the plain ; escape to the mountain, lest thou be 
consumed. And Lot said, ''I cannot escape to the moun- 
tain, lest evil overtake me and I die. Gen. 19 : 17-19. 

And they did eat bread and tarried all night in the 
mountain. Gen. 31 : 54. 

Unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills. Gen. 
49 : 26. 

And Moses went up unto God, and the Lord called unto 
him out of the mountain. Exodus 19 : 3. 

And it came to pass on the third day, when it was 
morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a 
thick cloud upon the mount. And Mount Sinai was alto- 
gether on smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire : 
and the smoke thereof was as the smoke of a furnace, and the 
whole mount quaked greatly, and the Lord came down upon 
Mount Sinai, to the top of the mount : and the Lord called 
Moses to the top of the Mount, and Moses went up. Ex. 
19 : 16, 18, 20. 

[249] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

And the glory of the Lord abode upon Mount Sinai, 
and the cloud covered it six days : and the seventh day he 
called unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud. And the 
appearance of the glory of the Lord was like devouring 
fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of 
Israel. And Moses entered into the midst of the cloud, and 
went up into the mount : and Moses was in the mount forty 
days and forty nights. Ex. 24 : 16-18. 

And they rose up early in the morning and got them 
up to the top of the mountain, sajdng, Lo, we be here. Num- 
bers 14 : 40. 

Take Aaron and Eleazar his son, and bring them up 
into Mount Hor, and Aaron shall die there. * * and they 
went up into Mount Hor in the sight of all the congregation ; 
and Aaron died there in the top of the mount. Num. 
20 : 25-28. 

And the Lord said unto Moses, Get thee up into this 
mountain of Abarim, and behold the land which I have 
given unto the children of Israel. Num. 27 : 12. 

And they turned and went up into the mountain, and 
came unto the valley of Eshcol, and spied it out. Deut. 1 : 24. 

Then we turned and took our journey into the wilder- 
ness * * ; and we compassed Mount Seir many days. And 
the Lord spake unto me, saying, Ye have compassed this 
mountain long enough : turn you northward. Deut. 2 : 1-3. 

Let me go over, I pray thee, and see the good land that 
is beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon. * * 
Get thee up into the top of Pisgah, and lift up thine eyes 
westward, and northward, and southward, and eastward, 

[250] 



MOUNTAINS IN THE BIBLE 

and behold with thine eyes : for thou shalt not go over this 
Jordan. Deut. 3 : 25 ; 27. 

And ye came near and stood under the mountain; and 
the mountain burned with fire unto the heart of heaven, with 
darkness, cloud, and thick darkness. And the Lord spake 
unto you out of the midst of the fire. Deut. 4 : 11, 12. 

But the land whither ye go over to possess it, is a land 
of hills and valleys. Deut. 11 : 11. 

And for the chief things of the ancient mountains. And 
for the precious things of the everlasting hills. Deut. 33 : 15. 

And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto 
Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jeri- 
cho. And the Lord showed him all the land of Gilead, unto 
Dan; and all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim and Man- 
asseh, and all the land of Judah, unto the hinder sea ; and 
the South, and the Plain of the valley of Jericho the city 
of palm trees, unto Zoar. * * So Moses died there in the 
land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. And he 
buried him in the valley * * but no man knoweth of his 
sepulchre unto this day. Deut. 34 : 1-3, 5, 6. 

The mountains flowed down at the presence of the Lord, 
Even you Sinai at the presence of the Lord, the God 
of Israel. Judges 5 : 5. 

Behold, there come people down from the tops of the 
mountains. And Zebul said unto him, thou seest the shadow 
of the mountains as if they were men. Judges 9 : 36. 

Ye mountains of Gilboa, 

Let there be no dew nor rain upon you. 2 Sam. 1 : 21. 

[251] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

And Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; and he bowed 
himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his 
knees. I Kings 18 : 42. 

And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before 
the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great 
and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke in pieces 
the rocks before the Lord. I Kings 19 : 11. 

And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and 
he saw : and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and 
chariots of fire round about Elisha. II Kings 6 : 17. 

With the multitude of my chariots am I come up to the 
height of the mountains to the innermost parts of Lebanon; 
and I will cut doAvn the tall cedar trees thereof, and the 
choice fir trees thereof : and I will enter into his farthest 
lodging place, the forest of his fruitful field. II Kings 19 : 
23. 

Go forth unto the mount, and fetch olive branches and 
branches of wild olive, and myrtle branches, and palm 
branches and branches of thick trees, to make booths. Ne- 
hemiah 8 : 15. 

Which removeth the mountains, and they know it not, 
when he overturneth them in his anger. Job 9 : 5. 

And surely the mountains falling cometh to nought, 
and the rock is removed out of its place. Job 14 : 18. 

They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and 
embrace the rock for want of a shelter. Job 24 : 8. 

He putteth forth his hand upon the flinty rock; He 
overturneth the mountains by the roots. Job 28 : 9. 

[252] 



MOUNTAINS IN THE BIBLE 

The range of the mountain is his pasture, and he search- 
eth after every green thing. Job 39 : 8. 

Surely the mountains bring him forth food; where all 
the beasts of the field do play. Job 40 : 20. 

How sa}' ye to my soul, 

Flee as a bird to your mountain? Psalm 11 : 1. 

Then the earth shook and trembled. 

The foundations also of the mountains moved 

And were shaken, because he was wroth. Ps. 18 : 7. 

Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? 
And who shall stand in his holy place? Ps. 24 : 31. 

Thy righteousness is like the mountains of God; 
Thy judgments are a great deep. Ps. 36 : 6. 

Therefore will we not fear, though the earth do change, 
And though the mountains* be shaken into the heart 
of the seas ; 

Though the mountains thereof roar and be troubled. 
Though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. 

Ps. 46 : 2, 3. 

For every beast of the forest is mine. 

And the cattle upon a thousand hills, 

I know all the fowls of the mountains ; 

And the wild beasts of the hills are mine. Ps. 50 : 10, 11. 

Which by his strength setteth fast the mountains ; 
Being girded about with might. Ps. 65 : 6. 

A mountain of God is the mountain of Bashan; 
An high mountain is the mountain of Bashan, 

[253] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

Why look ye askance, ye high mountains, 

At the mountain which God hath desired for his abode? 

Yea, the Lord will dwell in it forever. Ps. 68, 15, 16. 

The mountain shall bring peace to the people. 
And the hills, in righteousness. Ps. 72 : 3. 

There shall be abundance of corn in the earth upon the 
top of the mountains; 

The fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon. Ps. 72 : 6. 



And he brought them to the border of his sanctuary 
To this mountain, which his right hand had purchased 

Ps. 78 : 54. 



His foundation is in the holy mountains. Ps. 87 : 1. 



Before the mountains were brought forth. 

Or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, 

Even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. 

Ps. 90 : 2. 

In his hands are the deep places of the earth ; 

The heights of the mountains are his also. Ps. 95 : 4. 

The hills melted like wax at the presence of the Lord, 
At the presence of the Lord of the whole earth. Ps. 
97: 5. 

Let the floods clap their hands ; 

Let the hills sing for jo}^ together. Ps. 98 : 8. 

Who looketh on the earth and it trembleth ; 

He toucheth the mountains and thej^ smoke. Ps. 104 : 32. 

The mountains skipped like rams. 

The little hills like young sheep. Ps. 114 : 4. 

[25^] 



3a. I 



MOUNTAINS IN THE BIBLE 

I will lift up mine eyes unto the mountains : 
From whence shall my help come ? Ps. 121 : 1. 

As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, 

So the Lord is round about his people, 

From this time forth and for evermore, Ps. 125 : 2. 

Like the dew^ of Hermon, 

That Cometh down upon the mountains of Zion : 
For there the Lord commanded the blessing. 
Even life for evermore. Ps. 133 : 3. 

Who maketh grass to grow upon the mountains. Ps. 

147 : 8. 

Before the mountains were settled. 

Before the hills was I brought forth. Proverbs 8 : 25. 

The voice of my beloved ! behold, he cometh, 
Leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. 

Song 2 : 8. 

Until the day be cool, and the shadows flee away, 

I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, 

And to the hill of frankincense. * * 

Come with me from Lebanon, my bride. 

With me from Lebanon : 

Look from the top of Amana, 

From the top of Senir and Hermon, 

Prom the lion's dens, 

From the mountains of the leopards. Song 4 : 6, 8. 

And it shall come to pass in the latter days that the 
mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the 
top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; 

[255] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall 
go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of 
the Lord. Isaiah 2 : 2, 3. 

Set ye up an ensign upon the bare mountains. * * The 
noise of a multitude in the mountain, like as of a great 
people. Isa. 13 : 2, 4. 

And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto 
all people a feast of fat things, Isa. 25 : 6. 

Till ye be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain, 
and as an ensign on a hill. * * And there shall be upon every 
lofty mountain, and upon every high hill, rivers and streams 
of waters. Isa. 30 : 17, 25. 

thou that tellest good tidings to Zion, get thee up into 
the high mountain. Isa 40 : 9. 

Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and 
hill shall be made low : and the crooked shall be made 
straight, and the rough places plain : and the glory of the Lord 
shall be revealed. 

Who hath weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills 
in a balance. Isa. 40: 4, 12. 

Thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, 
and shalt make the hills as chaff. Isa. 41 : 15. 

Let them shout from the top of the mountains. Isa, 
42 : 11. 

Break forth into singing, ye mountains, forest, and 
every tree therein. Isa. 44 : 23. 

And I will make all my mountains a way, and my high 
ways shall be exalted. Isa. 49 : 11. 

[256] 



MOUNTAINS IN THE BIBLE 

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him 
that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace. Isa. 52 : 7. 

For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed ; 
but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall my 
covenant of peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy 
on thee. Isa. 54:10. 

The mountains and the hills shall break forth before you 
into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. 
Isa. 55: 12. 

They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, 
saith the Lord. Isa. 65 : 25. 

I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the 
hills moved to and fro. Jer. 4 : 24. 

They have turned them away on the mountains: they 
have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their 
resting place. * * And I will bring Israel again to his 
pasture, and he shall feed on Carmel and Bashan, and his soul 
shall be satisfied upon the hills of Ephraim and Gilead. Jer. 
50: 6, 19. 

Thus saith the Lord God to the mountains and to the hills, 
to the water courses and to the valleys : Behold, I, even I, will 
bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high places. 
Ezekiel 6: 3. 

And the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the 
city, and stood upon the mountain which is on the east side 
of the city. Ezek. 11 : 23. 

I will feed them with good pastures, and upon the moun- 
tains of the height of Israel shall their fold be: there shall 

[257] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

they lie down in a good fold and on fat pastures shall they 
feed upon the mountains of Israel. Ezek. 34 : 14. 

But ye, mountains of Israel, ye shall shoot forth your 
branches, and, yield your fruit to my people Israel. Ezek. 
36 : 8. 

Upon the top of the mountains the whole limit thereof 
round about shall be most holy. Ezek. 43 : 12. 

'And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains 
shall drop down sweet wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, 
and all the brooks of Judah shall flow with waters. Joel 3 : 18. 

For, lo, he that formeth the mountains, and createth the 
wind, and declareth unto man what is his thought, that 
maketh the morning darkness, and treadeth upon the high 
places of the earth ; the Lord, the God of hosts is his name. 
Amos 4: 13. 

And the mountains shall be molten under him, and the 
valley shall be cleft, as wax before the fire, as waters that are 
poured down a steep place. Micah 1 : 4. 

Hear ye now what the Lord saith : Arise, contend thou 
before the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice. Hear, 
ye mountains, the Lord's controversy, and ye enduring 
foundations of the earth. Micah 6 : 1, 2. 

And the eternal mountains were scattered. 
The everlasting hills did bow . . 

The mountains saw thee and were afraid. Habakkuk 
3 : 6, 10. 

Go up to the mountain and bring wood, and build the 

[258] 



1 



MOUNTAINS IN THE BIBLE 

house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, 
saith the Lord. Haggai 1:8. 

Who art thou, great mountain? Before Zerubbabel 
thou shalt become a plain: and he shall bring forth the head 
stone with shoutings of Grace, grace, unto it. Zech. 4: 7. 

And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of 
Olives * * and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst 
thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall 
be a very great valley ; and half of the mountain shall remove 
toward the north, and half of it toward the south. And ye 
shall flee by the valley of the mountains ; for the valley of the 
mountains shall reach unto Azel. Zech 14: 4, 5. 

Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high 
mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world, 
and the glory of them. Matt. 4 : 8. 

And seeing the multitudes, he went up into the mountain : 
and when he had sat down, his disciples came unto him ; and 
he opened his mouth and taught them. Matt. 5 : 1. 

And when he was come down from the mountain great 
multitudes followed him. Matt. 8:1. 

And after he had sent the multitudes away, he went up 
into the mountain apart to pray : and when even was come he 
was there alone. Matt. 14: 23. 

And Jesus departed thence, and came nigh unto the sea 
of Galilee ; and he went up into the mountain and sat there. 
Matt. 15: 29. 

And after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter, and 
James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into a 

[259] 



MY MOUNTAINS 

high mountain apart : and he was transfigured before them : 
and his face did shine as the sun, and his garments became 
white as the light. Matt. 17 : 1, 2. 

If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say 
unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it 
shall remove. Matt. 17 : 20. 

Then let them that are in Judea flee unto the mountains. 
Matt. 24: 16. 

But the eleven disciples went into Galilee, unto the 
mountain where Jesus had appointed them. Matt. 28 : 16. 

And it came to pass in these days, that he went out into 
the mountain to pray; and he continued all night in prayer 
to God. Luke 6: 12. 

And every night he went out, and lodged in the mount 
that is called the mount of Olives. Luke 21 : 37. 

And he came out, and went, as his custom was, into the 
mount of Olives; and the disciples also followed him. Luke 
22: 39. 

Jesus therefore perceiving that they were about to come 
and take him by force, to make him king, withdrew again into 
the mountain himself alone. John 6 : 15. 

And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great 
mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea ; and the third 
part of the sea became blood. E-ev. 8 : 8. 

And every island fled away, and the mountains were not 
found. Rev. 16: 20. 

[260] 



MOUNTAINS IN THE BIBLE 

And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great 
and high, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem, coming 
down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. Rev. 
21: 10, 11. 



[261] 



Index 



Adamana 




135 


Camp, a family 


42 


Agates 


163 


165 


Camp, of '87, Our 


243 


Alaska, mountains in 




19 


Camping alone 


30 


Alaska, trip to, by 'boat 




18 


Campfire, The 


225 


Album, in J. A's 




247 


Camping trips 


35, 42 


Album in my neice's 




248 


Canadian Pacific R. R. 


148 


Albuquerque, N. M. 




107 


Canadian Rockies, first sight of 


3 


Alicante 




162 


Canon City 


28 


Alpenglow, The 




13 


Canons 


99 


Alpine Pass 




122 


Canons near Pike's Peak 


100 


Arkansas Canon 




101 


Carnelians 


163 


Arkansas Valley 




27 


Cascade Canon 


102 


Around the circle 




167 


Cascade Creek 


172 


Aspen 




130 


Cascade in North Cheyenne 


80 


Aquamarines 




159 


Casnino 
Caves 


112 
140 


Bald Mountain, in clouds on 


70 


Cave of the Winds 


143 


Baryta 




160 


Celestite 


161 


Bears 30, 48, 49, 


124,189 


178 


Chalk Creek Canon 


122 


Bear-steak 




37 


Chattanooga, Colo. 


170 


Bear and trout 




155 


Chautaugua 


45 


Bible, mountain verses 




249 


Cheyenne Canon 


101 


Bicycle 




16 


Cheyenne Creek 


73 


Bijou Basin 




162 


Cheyenne Mountain 


13 


Bird and spider's web 




156 


Cheyenne Mountain Camp 


30 


Black Canon 




173 


Children cured 


202 


Black Hills 


16, 155 


164 


Children in camp 


44 


Book in the brook 




88 


Chipmunk, The 


223 


Boys Exploring Society 




141 


Chippeta Falls 


173 


Boys in camp 


31, 33 


Church at Montrose 


96 


Boreas 




25 


Circle, squaring a mountain 


24 


Boulder Canon, on cars 




23 


Cleora, Colo. 


27 


Box Canons 


105 


173 


Cliff dwellings 


112 


Breckenridge 


26 


161 


Cloud-burst 


201 


Brick Pomeroy's tunnel 




58 


Clouds and mountains 


216 


Bridal Veil Falls, Colo. 




75 


Clouds, glorified 


234 


Bridal Veil Falls, Calif. 




195 


Coal mines 


144 


Bright Angel Trail 




116 


Colorado Springs 16 
Columbia River 


, 30, 140 
18 


Cactus 




213 


Columbines 


138, 151 


Cameron's Cone 


2, 33, 54 


Conductor goes hunting 


169 


Camp, a community 




45 


Crested Butte 


160 



INDEX 



Cripple Creek 




35 


Fremont Pass 


26 


, 162 


Cryolite 




162 


French Gulch 




161 


Crystal Beds 




159 








Crystals of frost 




55 


Garden of the Gods 




161 


Crystal hunting 




158 


Garfield Monument 




168 


Crystal Park 




31 


Geysers 




186 


Cumberland Mountains 




1 


Girls, Three pretty 




46 


Currecanti Needle 




173 


Glaciers 




148 








Glacier 


148 


, 150 


Dead towns 




27 


Glacier Illecillewaet 




149 


Deer, Killing one 




39 


Glacier, Muir 


Introduction 


Denver & Rio Grande R. R. 24, 26 


221 


Glen Park 


45 


, 236 


Desert a blossoming 




206 


Gold mines 




144 


Deserted towns 




55 


Gold nugget 




145 


Diamond Creek 


110, 


, 111 


Gough, John B. 




6 


Douglas gold mine 




19 


Grand Canon 


28, 


, 107 


Driver, our 




39 


Grand River Canon 




101 


Durham, Major 




194 


Granite, Colorado 




38 


Durango 




169 


Graymont, Colorado 




57 


Dust Storms 




211 


Gray's Peak 

Gray's Peak, descent of 




57 
60 


Eagle Canon 




101 


Gray's Peak, view from 




59 


Echoes 


34, 


171 


Great American Desert 




98 


El Capitan 




195 


Green Mountains 




4 


Elephant Rock 




188 


Greenville Channel 




20 


Elk Mountains 


160, 


174 


Gulf of Georgia 




22 


Emerald Pool 




187 


Gunnison River 




173 


Emigrant Peak 




183 


Gypsum 




160 


Feldspar 




159 


Half Dome 




196 


Field-glass 




18 


Hay John 




33 


Fiords of Norway 




21 


Harney's Peak 




16 


First sight, from trains 




3 


Haysback Peak 




109 


Fishing 




154 


Helictites 




143 


Fish, catching in hand 




155 


Hills of God, The 




240 


Fish, caught three times 




155 


Hog, a puzzled 




50 


Flagstaff, Arizona 




112 


Hold ups 




109 


Florissant, Colorado 




163 


HoTse thieves shot 




42 


Flowers 43, 


124 


136 


Hot Springs 




37 


Flowers in ice water 


129, 


137 


Hunting 




153 


Flowers, variety of 




137 








Flowers in Yellowstone Park 




188 


Ice age 




151 


Fool's gold 




161 


Ice cave 




124 


Foot hills 




100 


Illecillewaet Glacier 


148, 


149 


Forests 




133 


Independence 




130 


Forest fires 




12 


Independence Pass 




127 


Fossil forests 




191 


Indians 




169 


Fossil insects 




36 


Indian pottery 




163 


Fremont, John C. 




92 


Irrigation 




209 



INDEX 



Jackson, Helen Hunt 
Johnson, Samuel 
Jones' Park 
Jones' Park, lost in 
Judgment Day 

Kelso, Mount 
Kenosha Hill 
Ketchikan, Alaska 
Kokomo, Colorado 

Lake Christoval 

Lake City 

Lake Creek 

Lake house 

Lake Morraine 

Lakes on Ophir Pass 

Leadville 

Liberty Cap 

Little Fountain Creek 

Long, Major 

Lone Star Geyser 

Lookout Mountain, fire on 

Lost streams 

Mail carrier lost 

Mammoth Hot Springs 

Manitou 

Mariana Park 

Marshall Pass 

Matterhorn, The 

Midland R. R., The 

Mills, Enos A. . 8, 92 

Minerals in Black Hills 

Miners, debt to 

Minnehaha Falls 

Mirage 

Mirror Lake 

Mount Elbert 

Mount G-arfield 

Mount of the Holy Cross 

Mount Lincoln 

Mount Lincoln, view from 

Mount McClellan 

Mount Princeton 

Mount Shasta 

Mount Sultan 

Mount Watkins 

Mount Whitney 



Introduction 

Introduction 

97 

98 

117 

58 
24 
19 
26 

175 

174 

37 

65 

65 

126 

26, 42 

184 

160 

64 

181, 187 

12 

216 

199 

184 

2 141 

97 

L19, 120, 121 

52 

227 

Introduction 

164 

64 

25, 94 

196 

38, 162 

106 

59 

55, 136 

56 

57 

27 

14 

170 

197 

13 



Mont Blanc 
Mount Blanca 
Mountains as neighbors 
Mountains, best place to see 
Mountain brook 
Mountain climbers 
Mountain climbing 
Mountains, escape to 
Mountains, first sight of 
Mountains, homesick for 
Mountains, influence of 
Mountains in Bible 
Mountain miscellanies 
Mouptains, moods of 
Mountains, ownership of 
Mountain passes 
Mountain peaks in Colorado 
Mountains revisited 
Mountains, seeing on foot 
Mountains, seeing on horseback 
Mountains, seeing from camp wagon 
Mountains, seeing from autos 
Mountains, seeing from steamboat 
Mountains, seeing from car window 
Mountains, showing to friends 
Mountains, thunder storms on 
Mountains, through the 
Mountains transfigured 
Mud volcano 
Muir, John 

119, 133, 135, 153, 156, 193, 196, 



92, 93 

8 

15 

80 

52 

53 

203 

1 

4 

Introduction 

249 

205 

10 

Introduction 

119 

71 

5 

16 

17 

3 17 

18 

18 

22 

14 

11 

227 

60 

189 



and 
Mule, a dead 
Multnomah Falls 

Needles, The 

Nevada Fall 

Newport, Oregon 

Niagara 

North Table Mountain 

North Park 

0-be-joyful Gulch 

Oberlin professors 

Old Faithful 

Oneonta Gorge 

Ore dumps 

O'Rourke's baby. Sergeant 

Oregon grapes 



ntroduction 
44 

78 

16, 106 
196 
165 

73 
163 

92 

169 
42 

187 
78 

163 
67 
44 



INDEX 



Oregon peaks concealed 
Ouray 

Pacific slope 

Paddock, Rev. E. A. 

Palmer Lake 

Paradise Valley 

Parks 

Parks, Colorado 

Parks, national 

Passes of the Sierras 

Peach Springs 

Peach Springs Canon 

Petrified forests 

Petrified wood 

Phantom Curve 

Phenacite 

Pick 

Pickett's Cave 

Pickett, John and George 

Pickett, Rev. J. W. 1'. 

Picnic days 

Pike's Peak 2, 

Pike's Peak, our ascent 

Pike's Peak, cloud views 

Pike's Peak, our descent 

-Pike's Peak, discovery of 

Pike's Peak, hid two weeks 

Pike's Peak Range 

Pike's Peak rats 

Pike's Peak, seen from different 

points 
Pike's Peak, snow on 
Pike's Peak, thunder storms on 
Pike's Peak sunrise 
Pike's Peak sunset 
Pike's Peak summit house 
Pike, Zebulon 
Pitkin 

Pleasant Park 
Partland Creek 
Powell, Major 
Preacher, talk about 
Precipice 
Promises, book of 
Pueblo 
Pueblo Indians 1] 

Quartz crystals 32, U 



10 


Railroads in Colorado 


23 


172 


Rainbow 
Rainier, Mt. 


40, 76 


130 


Raspberries 


30, 48 


130 


Rattlesnakes 


44 


45 


Recipe for scenery 


157 


183 


Red Mountain 


125, 171 


91 


Red Mountain Park 


171 


91 


Red rocks 


45 


91 


Restaurant prices 


23 


119 


Revolvers in satchels 


115 


108 


Rhodocrosite 


162 


109 


Rhymes, mountain 


219 


135 


Rico 


177 


162 


Rio Grande R. R. 


221 


168 


Rio Grande River 


93 


159 


Rio Las Animas Canon 


104 


30 


Robin, self hung 


157 


143 


Robinson, Colorado 


26 


141 


Road agents 


120 


, 144 


Roaring Fork 


130 


202 


Rock, ^hadoM^ of great 


215 


5, 36 


Rockwood, Colorado 


176 


64 


Rocky Mountains 


1 


68 


Rolling stones 


57, 213 


69 


Rosemma Falls 


65, 219 


62 


Royal Gorge 


28 


11 


Runaway 


37 


29 


Russell, Prof. 


Introduction 


67 


Russia mine 


55 


8 
66 


Ruxton Creek 


64 


Scenery, hunting for 


157 


66 


Scientific names 


158 


67 


Saguache peaks 


27, 56 


13 


Salt works 


36 


66 


San Juan, The 


151, 166 


62 


San Juan Mountains 


136 


123 


Sangre de Christo Mountains 27 


43 


San Luis Park 


92 


172 


Savage River 


127 


111 


Seven Falls 


73 


178 


Seven Lakes 


34 


129 


Seven Wonders 


181 


76 


Seymour Narrows 


19 


28 


Sierra Point 


197 


, 163 


Silver mine in Elk Mounta 


ins 145 




Silverton, Colorado 


170 


, 163 


Singers Hills 


Introduction 



INDEX 



Sir Donald Mountain 




151 


Uncompaghre River 




171 


Slang, school girl 




179 


Uncompaghre Valley 




95 


Snow, deep 




147 


Upper Geyser Basin 




186 


Snow slides 


122, 


199 


Ute Indians 




96 


South Park 


24, 


, 163 


Ute Pass 


' 


36 


South Platte River 




24 








Spearfiesh in Black Hills 




155 


Vernal Fall 




196 


Springs and pools 


185, 


, 186 


View from Ophir Pass 




126 


Springs, unfailing 




209 


Vision, The 




152 


Stalactites 




142 


Volcanic Peaks 


13, 18 


Stage ride over pass 




127 








Stage ride, a rough 




131 


Walnut Canon 


72, 


, 114 


Sulphur Spring 




189 


Waterfalls 




72 


Sunday school 




36 


Waterfalls in Alaska 


20, 21 


^unrises and sunsets 




12 


Waterfalls named 




64 


Sunshine, Colorado 




214 


Water, none and plenty 




207 


Sunstrokes 




203 


Water ouzel 




156 


Sylvan Lake 




16 


Wedding fee 
Wedding in high life 




39 

205 


Talmadge 




117 


AVestervelt, W. D. 


57, 107, 


, 161 


Telescope 




32 


West Oak Creek 




172 


Telluride 


123, 


179 


Whales 




22 


Tenderfoot, to foothills 




10 


White Plague 




203 


Ten Mile Canon 




26 


Wild beasts 32, 


34, 153, 


201 


Thunder storms 


11, 46, 56, 


124 


Wild meat, variety of 




38 


Thunder storms, racing w 


ith one 


16 


Williams, Arizona 




116 


Toltec Gorge 




168 


Williams Canon 




141 


Topaz 




159 


Wind • 




33 


Tourmaline 


36, 


159 


Wind Cave 


144, 


165 


Trail, following the 




212 








Tramp, a day's 




47 


Yankee Girl Mine 




171 


Trees, changing colors 




134 


Yosemite 




193 


Trees on rocks , 




134 


Yosemite Falls 


78, 


195 


Trout Creek 




37 


Yellowstone Canon 




116 


Tunnels 




146 


Yellowstone Falls 




77 


Tunnel, Alpine 




122 


Yellowstone Lake 




188 


Twin Lakes 


37, 128, 


132 


Yellowstone Park 




181 


Tyndal, Professor 


Introduction 














Zeolites 




163 


Uncompaghre Park 




173 


Zircon 




162 



